


Warrior Who? Season 7

by WarriorWho



Series: Warrior Who? [1]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Mild Sexual Content, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-06-08 15:35:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 52,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6860974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WarriorWho/pseuds/WarriorWho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Warrior Who is a story I had started a couple of years ago in the form of roleplay, on ask.fm (http://ask.fm/WarriorWho) but I've recently decided to write it by myself. I keep posting it over there but I'll also post it here from now on. Now, the story has gone on for a while now and the chapters here aren't the first ones. I'm gonna try and sum it up for you all.<br/>https://drive.google.com/open?id=1irqCSjVeXq7Yp5l8sw9BIpcHVxmf0N3-YwjE_J0SaR4<br/>In this link you can find all of the information you need.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 7x00 - Have a holly, jolly, DALEK Christmas

It had been days. The Doctor had even had time to set up the whole TARDIS with Christmas decorations. Days then spent right beside the bed, where he had moved the Warrior after he had slept for more than six hours. The Time Lord didn’t want to admit it, but he had been worried out of his mind. Every morning he’d check the other’s pulse to make sure he was still alive, his two hearts pounding harder with each beat until he felt War’s ones under the skin of his wrist. Then, he’d just sigh, look at him one last time, and finally leaving the room to do other things, maybe -probably- to take his mind off of the whole matter. It’s not like the Doctor had ever been one for domestic life and such, but he knew War was, or, at least, enjoyed it. So, while the other one was sleeping, he had busied himself with some Christmas shopping: decorations, of course, presents, even a five-course dinner in case, as he hoped, he’d have waken up in time for the 25th of December.  
Well, it was almost midnight in the night between Christmas Eve and Christmas, and the Doctor was sitting in his usual armchair, next to the bed, his head on his hands, some kind of pout on his face. As usual, he had checked, and War was still alive, just sleeping. In time, he had stopped being worried and had started being just… Impatient. He had really hoped War would have woken up by now and he really didn’t want to spend one of the most beautiful times of the year alone, with a comatose boyfriend. It bugged him because he usually risked his life on Christmas day, and being with the Warrior now, with not a single danger in sight…..  
Wait, had he just called him his ‘boyfriend’?! The Doctor found himself blushing; it was the first time he’d actually thought of him as that. He didn’t even know what he was calling him before: he had always just been ‘the Warrior’, for him, or ‘War’, that was literally it, they were just ‘the Doctor and the Warrior’, the power couple of the universe. God, they really were a couple, weren’t they? And he had only realised now? Sighing, the Doctor slid further down in his position, feeling the sleep coming to get him. Another night of watching over the Warrior and he would have actually been tired. He needed to sleep. He needed to, although the thought of spending Christmas day sleeping and without War made him more and more frustrated every waking second. “Damn, it, War!” He basically shouted, in a last, vain attempt at waking the poor Time Lord up. There was no visible effect. Well, he wasn’t giving up on the staying awake, that was for sure, so the Doctor finally got up and out of the room, his loosened tie flapping against his stomach with every step he made, while he approached the kitchen to make some coffee. A few drawers opening and being slammed closed after, he found what he was looking for and after that he was just so busy staring at the coffee machine impatiently, that he hadn’t noticed the small sounds of bare feet stepping on the floor of his TARDIS.  
“There was no need of being /that/ loud, you know?” War’s sleepy and groggy voice said, right in the moment when the Doctor had picked up his coffee mug.  
So when the older looking Time Lord turned around and saw him, he dropped it, hot brown liquid spilling all over the floor while the mug just crashed into pieces. But the Doctor wasn’t there to care, he had already reached for the other man and had wrapped his arms around him, burying his face into the crook of his neck.  
“Don’t you ever do that again, alright?”  
War chuckled. “Doc, this happens /all/ the time.”

\-------

The Doctor’s chocolate brown eyes were fixated on the Warrior, almost as if he didn’t want to miss any move he did, as if he’d been afraid that, by just looking away for a second, he would have lost him again.  
“You really got me scared, there, you know?” He said after setting his fork down, breaking the silence which had fallen onto the dimly lighted kitchen. War stopped eating the remarkably large piece of turkey he had in his plate to look up at the other man, tiny bits of stuffing all around his lips. “I told you, you don’t need to worry about it, I’ve been through worse.” Then, he caught the look the other Time Lord was giving him. “And so have you.” He added, arching one eyebrow.  
Point taken. The Doctor’s stare lowered even more as he sighed. “It’s just-- I was worried out of my mind. I thought you were gone forever, that maybe not even regeneration would have made you wake up.”  
Cleaning his mouth with his napkin, War swallowed his food, then pressed his lips together. “I can understand that, but it wasn’t my fault, remember?”  
Once again, he was right. If it hadn’t been for Barath and the others, everything would have been fine by now. The Doctor mentally scolded himself for that thought; most of them were dead, and every time he thought about the grief Orel must had been feeling, his hearts broke more and more. “You’re right.” He nodded “I’m glad you came back, that’s what matters.” And then, everything seemed to slip into silence once again, but the Doctor wasn’t going to let that happen.  
“You know, I’ve been…Thinking.”  
War looked back up at him with a questioning look on his face.  
“Oh, never mind.” And the other returned to his food, stuffing his mouth with lightly shaking hands.  
“All this time and I can still manage to make you nervous.” Chuckled War, munching some salad “I still remember when I used to be the shy one, though.” He continued, staring at the wall next to him. “Wow, that was a while ago. But, anyways, what were you saying?”  
“It’s really-- Not important.”  
“Come on, Doc, you hardly ever keep something from me.” War smiled gently “And you can fool your companions but I get to see through your so called ‘rule number one’.” To that, the older man sighed once more. “Fine.” He put the fork back down and stared right into War’s blue eyes.  
“Are we an actual couple?” He asked, not even stuttering once.  
Needless to say, the Warrior was quite struck by that question. Of course, he had a massive crush on the Doctor since day one-- okay, he had always been crazy for him, he had done some pretty embarrassing things for him, but he had always thought the Doctor as a guy who didn’t really have time to define relationship. But then he stopped to realise something: they had all the time in the world- no, in the universe. There was no danger waiting for them just outside the kitchen door, no one to kidnap them or try to kill them. Right there and then, it was only them, sitting in that TARDIS, they were the only ones witnesses of their relationship. And the Doctor was trying to figure it out as much as he was, they were going to do it. Together.  
Then, War smiled. “We are.”  
And finally, as the Doctor’s lips curled into the same loving expression, there were no fears, no anxieties, no problems, just them. As cliché as it could be, the Warrior would have wanted to stay there forever, not minding anything else but the other man’s eyes.  
But, as all beautiful things do, it had to end.  
A single sound broke the silence the two Time Lords had fought so hard to conquer. One sound that shouldn’t have even been there, not then, not ever.  
The ringing of the Doctor’s phone, the one attached to the TARDIS door.  
Their eyes widened for an instant, then right after, they were both looking at the door, where the ringing echoed through the corridors of the spaceship. The two men slowly got up from their chairs and, after a quick glance at each other, they were off to the console room, War’s barefoot steps and the Doctor’s heels ones being covered by the insistent phone calling for them.  
There they stood, staring down at the impossible telephone, the one the shouldn’t have been ringing because basically no one in the universe had that number.  
Yet, there it was. Somebody was calling it, and it sure wasn’t a call center.  
The Doctor’s right hand opened the door, the December cold bursting in with a handful of snowflakes. He had the receiver in his hand and he brought it to his ear.

“Have a holly, jolly Christmas  
It’s the best time of the year  
I don’t know if there’ll be snow  
But have a cup of cheer…”

It was a male voice, singing a Christmas song, with music and all, almost as if it was a recording. But they knew it wasn’t: the voice was familiar.

“Have a holly, jolly Christmas  
And when you walk down the street,  
Say hello to friends you know  
And everyone you meet…”

A /scottish/, male voice. “Doc…” Murmured the Warrior.

“Oh, ho, the mistletoe  
Is hung where you can see  
Somebody waits for you  
Surprise, hello, it’s me.”

The Doctor knew, by that time, who was on the other side of the phone.  
“What do you want?”  
The man snickered. “I was wondering if after all these years you’d like to meet, you know?”  
The Time Lord didn’t answer. Instead, he looked at War, shaking his head lightly.  
“I’m sorry,” the other one continued “It’s just that this bloody song is stuck in my mind!”  
“What do you /really/ want?”  
“Actually, what I said isn’t really far from the truth!” They both could /hear/ the smirk on the Warlord’s face on the other side of the phone. “I’m throwing a little Christmas party, and I wanted to invite you both! There’s gonna be a few people you already know…” A rustling sound could be heard: he was moving. “Doctor?! Doctor it’s me, Donna!” a woman’s voice cried out. “Help--” She was abruptly cut off as the receiver was moved away from her and to another girl, who spoke right after. “Doctor! Don’t come here! It’s a--” It was Martha.  
“And, of course, there’s some people who’ve heard a lot about you two, they would love to get to know you personally… Wait, should I call them people?” It sounded like he was asking Martha and Donna. “Fine, I’m gonna ask them myself!” He then shouted: “HEY FOLKS! ARE YOU ALL PEOPLE?”  
What the two Time Lords heard after made their blood freeze in their veins.  
Hundreds, maybe thousands of identical, metallic voices, all screaming one, single word.  
“E X - T E R - M I - N A T E !”  
“Wowie.” Said the Warlord. “They really hurt my ear, there. But what about you? You’ve been silent all the bloody time! Are you going to give me an answer or not?”  
The Doctor expression had turned into a grimace of pure, boiling rage. “Let them go.” He said through gritted teeth. “Or else--”  
“Or else what, dear? You’re gonna stop me? You, who don’t kill people, and my nephew, who cries after exorcising his mother? Really?” The man laughed.  
“Look, it’s Christmas, we’re all supposed to be good, so I’ll suggest something.”  
“Speak.”  
“You two come here. We eat something, drink some wine, have a few laughs… And then you get to leave with your two precious companions… And I get the Warrior.”  
“There is no way we’re doing that!” Barked the Doctor.  
On the other side, the Warlord sighed. “Then I guess we’ll have it your way. Exterminate them.” He then casually said to a presumably close Dalek.  
“Doctor.” War finally spoke. “Let me talk to him.”  
“I am not giving you to him, War!”  
“Doctor!” His tone had raised and suddenly, the Doctor was reminded of how sometimes that man sounded just like him. Terrifying. He handed him the receiver.  
“Wait.” War said calmly and his uncle stopped the killer alien with a snap of his fingers.  
Then, the Time Lord stared right into the eyes of the one who was standing beside him.  
“We’re coming.”  
The Warlord grinned. “Brilliant.”

It was merely seconds after, when the Warrior burst into the wardrobe of the Doctor’s TARDIS, almost flying down the spiral staircases while followed by the other man.  
As he stormed from shelf to hanger and from hanger to drawer, he left the pieces of his pajama on the floor, then quickly dressing up with the first plaid shirt he had found, a random pair of jeans which luckily fit him well enough to not fall down and a pair of shoes you’d think a man like the Doctor would wear, with a suit and all.  
“War!” the other Time Lord had been trying to get his attention for a while now, whilst he was tying his shoes. “We can’t go there, he’ll take you somewhere and torture you or who knows what else! He probably won’t even let me go away with Martha and Donna! And who the Hell knows if it was actually them? This is all a huge trap!”  
War got up. “You know. You know it was them, you’re clever enough. You’re clever and you won’t let your friends die knowing that you chose me over them. And you also know that I’m gonna be fine, that I’ll find a way to escape and come back to you and we’ll all be great. You know that, Doc, you’re just trying to protect me from something I can surely defend myself against. Doctor, you’re not my dad.”  
Those words hurt him more than he would have liked to admit to himself. Once again, he was right: he knew all those things, he knew. Maybe the Warrior had outsmarted him, or maybe he was just in denial, thinking that he wasn’t ready to let go of what they had, not after that night, not after losing him so many times.  
He paused, his eyes lowering to the ground. “Why are you always right?”  
War gave him a small smile. “I’ve learned from the best.” He then stepped closer, lifing his chin up and leaving a small kiss on the tip of his nose. “I’ll always come back to you, okay? Always.”  
And the Doctor could just nod silently.

As they both stood one on each side of the console, the younger man asked: “How do we find him?”  
“He’s not stupid, he’ll have left something for us around the universe.”  
And so it was: giant carvings into mountains on a planet, geysers coming up to sea level to form letters, even a message written with dying stars.  
“How poetic.” War commented sharply, leaning on the wooden frame of the TARDIS door, then turning towards the Doctor. “Did you find it?”  
He nodded.  
“Then,” War clicked his tongue “Avanti.”  
And the Doctor pulled the starting lever.

The blue box appeared right in the middle of a plain, almost shining white platform, right outside of what pretty much looked like a big cube, of the same colour, just… Floating in outer space. Both of the Time Lords knew it had to be bigger on the inside. The duo approached the wall of the building and watched as a rectangular section of it slid up, disappearing into the wall above and granting them entrance to a rather particular ambience; the inside was indeed bigger, but it looked nothing like the outside: they were greeted by a large hall with a flight of steps which led to the second floor of the Victorian looking house. You could practically smell Christmas, in there. A warming flame roared inside of a large fireplace, with five stockings hung above it and a Christmas tree of impressive size right next to it. The more the two Time Lords stayed there, the more things they took in. Like the song playing softly in the background -still Have a holly jolly Christmas, the Warlord must have liked that song a lot-, the scent of Christmas pudding that filled up every inch of the room, and the mistletoe hung literally everywhere.  
They weren’t left waiting too much.  
“There you are! We were waiting for you!” The Warlord called from the highest step of the stairs. He quickly glanced at their clothes with a disappointed look on his face. “I thought you were going to dress appropriately for the occasion.”  
The Warrior looked at him. He really had: tuxedo, bow tie, hair combed nicely, he didn’t look like the same person they had fought before.  
Smiling, the man gestured them to follow him. “Come on, dinner’s ready!” And he made his way to the large door behind him, followed by the other two. “I saw you noticed my bow tie,” he said to War “I heard the Doctor likes them a lot.” Then, seeing the Doctor’s puzzled look, he paused, furrowing his eyebrows. “Too soon.”  
The Warrior knew what that meant, and he looked at the other man, who just shrugged slightly. Finally, they made it to the dining room, which was decorated similarly to the hall. Right at the centre of it, there was a long dark wooden table, which was fully prepared for a festive dinner, although there were just two people sitting on two opposite chairs: Martha and Donna, who immediately turned to the three men who had just walked in, opening their mouths to scream.  
The Warlord clicked his tongue and said: “Shut up.”; the two women were silent again. “Bad girls. You won’t get any pudding tonight.” He then spoke to the Warrior and the Doctor: “Please, have a sit.” And with that he went to sit at the head of the table, leaving only two empty chairs left, one in front of the other.  
The two Time Lords sat down, slowly and quietly, War staring down at the empty plate and the Doctor eyeing his two former companions with a worried expression.  
“So!” War’s uncle clapped his hands “Let’s get started!”  
Immediately after, five Daleks, all dressed up as maids, with white lace aprons and caps tied to their metal bodies, slid in through an open door which probably led to the kitchen. They were all carrying trays with different beverages and foods, which they all obediently set down on the table in silence, not even once saying their usual words. Not one of the people sitting at the table said a thing until the aliens had exited the room. Then, the Warlord started launching himself onto the food, munching loudly. He was the only one eating.  
War glanced at the Doctor, who arched an eyebrow. The younger man then spoke. “Are we doing this… Exchange or not?” He asked, his fingers unconsciously wrapping around the handle of one of the knives he had next to his plate.  
“Not yet, dear nephew. After dinner.” The man answered.  
“We already ate.”  
“Well you could at least try and have a good time.” His uncle gestured towards one of the glass flagons the Dalek maids had brought in, the one with dark liquid in it. “Please, have some wine.”  
War glanced at the beverage. “No.” He then looked at the Doctor. “We’re leaving.” And so the other man got up, stepping to Martha and Donna and helping them up as well.  
“Stop right there, Doctor.” Ordered the Warlord. The Doctor stopped, not even knowing why.  
“Martha, Donna, you don’t want to leave, fight him.”  
And the two women, mechanically, looked up at the man, right before punching and slapping him in the face and stomach, causing him to gasp in pain, but not to fall on the ground. He felt an urge inside of himself, an urge to remain right there.  
Warrior had been watching with horror. He pulled the knife he had taken earlier out of his pocket and charged at his uncle, aiming for his throat. “Stop.” He calmly said, and the younger man did, his hand still lifted in mid air.  
“Stab yourself in the leg.”  
“No!” The Doctor yelled, right before a particularly strong punch coming from Donna knocked him down at last.  
War’s hand shook lightly as he fought the command, but his uncle’s power was too strong, even for him. He shoved the blade into his right leg and screamed in pain, while dark blood came out of the wound, wetting the fabric of his jeans. The man fell to his knees, gasping.  
“Pull the knife out, now.” And he did as he asked, but before another order could come, he turned towards the Doctor to tell him to run, and he saw him almost passed out. “DOC!” He shouted, somehow shaking him from his unconscious state. The Time Lord sat up, still doing his best to block the two women’s hands. “Just go, Doc! Run!” War yelled again.  
“Well, he’s right.” His uncle nodded with a smirk. “We got what we both wanted, so you’re free to go. Martha, Donna, Doctor, I believe this is goodbye.” And he turned his head to his nephew “You will stay here.” The Warrior froze on the spot, while the Doctor got up and the other two stared at the whole scene with confusion in their eyes, obviously not remembering what had happened. The Doctor knew what he had to do: he had to leave, he had to make sure Martha and Donna were safe, and then come back to help the Warrior, hoping he’d told the truth, that he would be fine without him, but right now he had to go. The man pushed his two friends towards the door, forcing himself to look ahead and to not turn back. They had to run.  
“Get up.” The Warlord said, once the three were out the door. And Warrior did, grunting as the pain from his wound shot through his leg. He leaned onto the table, clenching his jaw. “What do you want from me?” He asked, and his uncle just smiled up at him. “Follow me.”

Outside the cube-house, the Doctor, Martha and Donna had meanwhile reached back for the TARDIS. “Now, listen to me!” Said the Time Lord, pointing at the blue box “You have to get in there and wait for us to come back, okay?”  
“Doctor, you’re not going back alone!” Donna protested and the other girl agreed: “He’ll control you, just like he did to us!”  
“No, he won’t!” He snapped.  
“How can you be so sure about it? It sure seemed like he did, just two minutes ago!”  
The Doctor rolled his eyes. “I’ll be fine! I just need to find War and run back here, we’ll be quick!”  
“But what if that man catches you?” Martha folded her arms on her chest, worried out of her mind, while the Time Lord paused, then sighed. “Fine. Let’s get inside the TARDIS and work out a better plan. Come on.” He gestured towards the time machine with his head. Glancing at him, the two women finally walked inside, with the man just behind them. “So, any ideas?” Donna asked, turning around only to find a closed door in front of her, then hearing the sound of a key turning into the lock. They were trapped inside. “I’m sorry!” The Doctor shouted from the outside “I’ll be back soon, okay?” And he was off, leaving the angry ginger woman to pound her fists against the locked wooden door.

The Warrior came to his senses and almost immediately realised he was in a completely blank room, tied to what looked like a metallic table, something which basically screamed ‘experiments’. /Horrible/ experiments. And he only remembered following his uncle through a door and then… Nothing else.  
The Time Lord tested the straps that were holding him: he couldn’t move an inch.  
He didn’t want to start panicking, he /couldn’t/, not in that situation. He had to stay calm and try to find a way to escape.  
But he didn’t have time for that.  
The sound of a door sliding open caused him to immediately turn his head and see five Daleks roll inside, and the first thing he noticed was that their mechanic limbs didn’t look like they usually did: those Daleks weren’t equipped with a gun and a telescopic manipulator. They had what seemed like scalpels and saws, needles and stitches, basically general surgical instruments. Then it hit him. They weren’t just normal medical tools: they were tools for a brain transplant.  
An holographic screen appeared on the wall the table was facing.  
“Hello there, dear nephew.” Exclaimed the Warlord, with a big smile “Are you ready for your big moment?”  
Warrior pulled at the straps on his wrists, grunting. “What are you talking about?!”  
His uncle winked. “Just give my friends there a little time and everything will be clear. Will the Doctor please take care of his patient.?” He paused, then snickered. “How ironic, isn’t it?” Finally, the screen disappeared, and one of the Daleks approached the table, holding a syringe full of dark liquid up until it was pressed to the Time Lord’s neck, piercing his skin.  
The last thing War heard before passing out again was the aliens chanting, in their metallic voice.  
“O - PER - ATE!”

The Doctor stormed through the door to the dining room, only to find it empty. The man clenched his jaw, looking around. Not that he was expecting to find the Warlord still there, but where could he have gone? He quickly pulled out his sonic and started waving it about, trying to find… He didn’t really know what, but he hoped it could have told him whether there was some kind of hidden passage somewhere.  
Suddenly he froze into place; there actually was! The screwdriver’s results revealed the presence of a hole behind one of the sections of the wall. It must have been behind the wallpaper, or maybe…?  
The Time Lord approached the wall on the opposide side of the room, then pressed the button on his screwdriver again. A beeping sound could be heard and then, conferming the man’s suppositions, the whole wooden rectangle covering that part of the wall slid up, just like the door that led him inside of the cube earlier. Before him, there was a long, dark corridor, lighted up only by dim green lights, set almost at floor-level on the side walls. The Doctor took a deep breath, gripped the sonic tight and finally adventured down the hallway.  
About half way through it, he started seeing a brigther, neon-looking light at its end. He knew he didn’t have much time before the Warlord would have perpetrated his plans on Warrior, so he hurried down the narrow path, until he stopped on his tracks, seeing what was at the end.  
A huge area presented itself to him: it had the shape of a reversed cone, narrowing itself more and more the further it went down. Sets of stairs followed the circular walls, stopping every once in a while on rectangular landings, where one or two doors took to different rooms. As he had noticed before, the place was much more illuminated, making it more easy for him to go down the stairs. There was almost complete silence in there, not even a clue for where he needed to go, so he just hurried down flight after flight, checking every single tag next to the doors. Nothing seemed important enough, until, almost at the very end, he encountered the entrance to a room labeled “Main Quarters”. Now, he had a choice:  
Walking in there and finding some informations about the Warlord, maybe even finding him and forcing him to reveal War’s position;  
Or going further down and continue the search.  
He opted for the first one, considering the second choice to take too much time. Upon looking at the door, the Time Lord noticed a number pad right next to it. No problem. One swipe of the sonic and the door opened by itself. Inside, there was some sort of master bedroom, circular and large, with a big king size bed in the centre. All around, against the walls, there were bookshelves. It didn’t look much different from the one Warrior and he had seen back in the Warlord’s spaceship a while before, with a similar desk against the far wall, covered with papers and books. He figured that would have been the best way to find intel about what the man was doing there. The Doctor stepped to the desk and observed what was on it. And it surprised him, because most of the books were about…  
Combining two species together. But not only two species, they were also about combining two different people, fusing them to form something else. There was also some kind of journal, closed, almost hidden from sight. The Doctor opened it and found basically just reports of experiments in fusions between Daleks and other aliens, with attached pictures. They had all failed, and he could see why: the results weren’t pleasant looking- at all: he only saw a few before feeling sick, but what he saw was enough: a Slitheen with no arms or legs, just a torso, forced to crawl with its disproportionate head, from which a Dalek eye came out; a Sontaran soldier with way too many arms and no head, just one single Dalek gun sticking out of what looked like his chest, and many more atrocities. Choking back the feeling to throw up, the Doctor put the journal back down, just then realising what the plan of the Warrior’s uncle probably was. Gulping, he ran back out as fast as he could, then storming down the remaining stairs until he reached the last door. As he was about to open it, a voice rumbled through the room: the Warlord’s voice.  
“Now, now, Doctor, didn’t your mother teach you not to look through someone’s private belongings?” He snickered.  
“Where is he?!” Roared the other Time Lord, looking up.  
The Warlord paused. “Come on, don’t ruin my performance, just follow my lead and you’ll see him soon!” A beep, and the door in front of the Doctor opened. It was an elevator.  
“Just get in there and come up here, I’ve got a surprise for you!”  
The communication ended, and the Doctor was left in the silence again. With no other choice, he stepped inside and pressed the only button, with the Gallifreyan symbol for an arrow pointing up.  
The door slid back close and he felt the elevator start moving; not much later, waiting music started playing: it was “Have a holly, jolly Christmas” again. The Doctor rolled his eyes.  
Finally, the elevator went ‘ding’ again and he rushed out, finding the Warlord standing in front of a control console, his hands behind his back, his usual big smile on his face.  
“Where is he?” The Doctor asked again, gripping his screwdriver harder than ever.  
The other man huffed. “God, you're so boring. I thought a man like you would've been more fun to talk to. Anyways!” And then he clapped, causing a small door on the side of the room to open. “It's Christmas, so here's a little present for you…” The Doctor watched with horror as another Dalek came through the opening. It was different from the others, completely golden with black details here and there, but looked as deadly as any other and, most of all, it looked… Familiar.  
“For you… And for the whole universe.”  
Then, the Dalek spoke, and what it said sent shivers down the Doctor’s whole body.  
“ARE - YOU - MY - DOC - TOR?”  
The Time Lord raised his hands above his head, glaring at the creature.  
“What is this?” He asked, and the other laughed. “You still haven't figured it out? You're stupider than I thought, a delusion after the other.” He commented.  
The Doctor stuttered: “W-what?”  
And then it finally hit him. It was…  
“An…. Hybrid…?” He asked, not being able to take his eyes off of it.  
Shaking his head, the Warlord clicked his tongue. “Not just /an/ hybrid. /The/ Hybrid. The one from the prophecy, the one destined to stand on the ruins of Gallifrey. You know, at first I wanted to do it myself but…” He moved, stepping towards the Dalek and gently patting its head. “This fellow here is far more powerful than me, he is the perfect one to carry on the prophecy.”  
The Doctor felt his world come crashing down upon him. “You…” His voice broke.  
“WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM?!”  
And the Warlord just faked a surprised expression. “Well, wasn't that obvious? You've been reading my journal, you know about the experiments, what else would you need to know?”  
It was obvious that the Doctor was boiling with rage, probably about to explode.  
“Why. Why did you do this?”  
The other man’s expression immediately changed to an evil grin. “Because I want to kill them all.”  
“Them?” The Doctor spat out “Them who?!”  
“Time Lords, Humans, Daleks… Everyone in the universe. When operation K.A.T.E. failed, I knew humans weren’t the right species for this project of mine. Apparently Time Lords already fused with Time Vortex creatures are the perfect option. ”  
Operation K.A.T.E.? Kate Watson? “And you think I'll just let you kill everyone?!”  
“Oh no, of course, why would you let me?” The man fake-pouted, then went back to a serious expression, patting the dalek’s heard one more time. “Warrior, kill him.” Next thing the Doctor knew, the man was gone, disappeared in thin air, and the golden Dalek was coming towards him, waving its gun around.  
“EX - TER - MI - NATE!”  
“STOP!” Shouted the Time Lord “PLEASE!”  
The Dalek was cornering him.  
“EX - TER - MI - NATE!”  
“STOP!”  
“EX - TER - MI - NATE!”  
Then, with his back almost against the wall, the Doctor tried one last desperate measure.  
“WAR!”  
The Warrior Dalek stopped in its tracks, his gun inches from the Time Lord’s chest.  
And then, it spoke again.  
“ARE - YOU - MY - DOC - TOR?” It asked again, this time sounding more human, more… Warrior, than Dalek.  
The Doctor could feel his eyes tear up.  
The worst thing was that he didn't even knew how he would have cured him, how he could have brought him back. And the more he thought about it, the worse he felt, the more useless he felt, and he hated it, and he hated himself for it.  
“I'm so sorry, War… I'm so, so, sorry…” The man felt warm tears streaming down his cheeks, ending up falling onto the cold floor.  
“YOU - ARE - MY - DOC - TOR…” This time, it sounded just like War, just more metallic.  
And the Doctor realised that it didn't matter if he didn't know what to do, it didn't matter how hard he hated himself for it, they were going to find a way to fix that, together.  
“Yes. Yes I am. And I will take care of you.” He said, lowering a bit to slowly wrap his arms around the other alien. He would have never thought he'd have ended up like that, hugging a Dalek, yet there he was. Two mortal enemies embracing each other. Kind of.  
“Let's go, War.” He said, wiping his tears away.  
The Time Lord walked rather slowly back to the elevator, followed by the Dalek, but as soon as he was about to press the button that would have brought them back to where the Doctor had come from, another holographic screen appeared behind them, right above the console.  
“I see the subject doesn’t obey my orders.” The Warlord commented, and it sounded strange, as if he’d had a quick mood swing, or maybe a whole change of personality. It didn’t sound like the one they had been talking to until a few minutes ago, nor like the one they had defeated in the past.  
The Doctor stepped away from the elevator door and approached the screen, glaring up at the other Time Lord. “Oh, so now you call him ‘subject’? Where’s the ‘dear nephew’ gone?”  
Arching one eyebrow, the silver haired man slightly cocked his head to a side. “Subject 01 compromised.” He said almost blankly, seemingly writing something down on some sort of notepad. “Ship number two to be deleted. Autodestruction process initiated.” Finally, the screen cut off to black and disappeared, leaving a flashing red light to fill the console room, along with an alarm sound. Then, a robotic female voice announced: “Detonation in 30… 29… 28…”  
Cursing under his breath, the Doctor turned to the Dalek-Warrior. “We have to go!” He shouted, running to the elevator, only to find it locked. Not even the sonic worked on it.  
“NEGATIVE.” The Dalek replied.  
“What…?”  
“25… 24… 23…”  
Confused, the Time Lord watched as the other alien rotated to face the opposite direction, then heading to the console. Its left limb, the one resembling a human plunger, made contact with one of the control outputs, that way linking the Dalek to the mainframe. Was it trying to unlock all the doors?  
“19… 18… 17… 16… 15…”  
“MAINFRAME - HACKED. TELEPORTATION - REHABILITATED.”  
The Doctor curled his lips in a huge smile. “Brilliant! Now we can get back to the TARDIS!”  
But then the Dalek turned around. “NEGATIVE. SINGLE - TRAVEL - REQUESTED.”  
Single travel? Did that mean the Warrior was really about to kill him?  
“12… 11… 10… 9…”  
And yet there he was, standing still, no sign of bloodthirst showing. The Doctor realised.  
“NO!” He cried out, leaping towards the Dalek, extending one hand towards it, just about to touch it--  
One blink of an eye after, the Doctor was back inside the console room of the TARDIS. “I am not letting you do this, War, not this time!” Yelled the now rushing Time Lord, as he ran around the circular console to start the engine of the spaceship. He just needed one last lever to pull, one last effort and…  
The flashing light came about one second before the rumbling that shook the TARDIS from the bottom to the top. The Doctor was thrown to the opposite side of the room as the spaceship spinned again and again, out of control, in outer space.  
It was only after minutes of slamming against every single edge of the room that he could finally fall back on the ground, as the blue box had stabilized itself. Flinching in pain, the Time Lord crawled to the lever he still had to pull and finally did it: the engine roared and the time machine appeared where it was standing before. The Doctor quickly opened the door and looked around; there he was! Half destroyed, half melted, the golden dalek was at his worst, floating aimlessly through space.  
Just by moving the TARDIS a little bit, he was able to pull him in, and only then noticed the dim golden aura around it, until then hidden by the light’s reflexes onto the same coloured metal. The Warrior was… Regenerating? Of course, if they had to keep parts of his Time Lord nature, they would have kept that. But it was too dangerous to let him form a new body there: he had to bring him somewhere safer.  
Earth was the only place he could think of.

He hadn’t even travelled that much, nor in space, nor in time. They were basically standing where they had been before, just a few minutes after. With a lot of effort, he managed to push the crushed alien out onto the ground, where it fell on its side, the golden glow now much brighter and stronger; it was about to happen. As much as he wanted to stay there with him, to assist him, he knew it was going to be dangerous, as Warrior had to recreate a whole body after an explosion that big. It really was a miracle if he was still alive. Anyways, the Doctor had to shelter himself, so he ran back inside the TARDIS, holding the door closed while keeping his eyes shut and just… Waited.  
About a minute after, the golden light flashed through glass panes and the cracks of the door, and he knew it was over. Slowly, the man stepped outside, afrain to look, scared to see some sort of monster, something resembling both a Dalek and a Time Lord, like the hybrid he’d seen before, in New York. He expected something terrifying…  
And instead, there, between discarded, bent, melted metal pieces, lay a naked young man. He looked pale, nonetheless, but nothing out of the ordinary. Curly, brown hair covered his forehead, while a short beard did the same thing to his sharp chin. He couldn’t say the new body was as scrawny as the last one, in fact it was quite muscular. Beyond the physical appearance, he looked fine, just... Unconscious.  
“Not again…” The Doctor murmured, kneeling next to him and gently placing one hand on his cheek. “War…?”  
For a split second, the sleeping Time Lord’s eyes twitched underneath his eyelids, before they sprung up and his whole body jerked, sending him up in a sitting position with a loud gasp. He was back.  
“War!” The Doctor exclaimed, and the other man looked at him, some sort of smile curling his lips. “Clothes.” He simply said.  
“You’re right.” The first one chuckled uncontrollably.

And so there they were again, in the Doctor’s wardrobe, while the new Warrior got dressed. The older man couldn’t help but stare, apparently. And he couldn’t help but notice that the tattoo on his back had changed once again, as this time the wings continued further down his back with a long tail that ended up just before his coccyx. He didn’t know what that dipended on, he had to remember to ask War, maybe he knew. Once War was finally covered by something that was not the other Time Lord’s trench coat, he smiled.  
“I’m glad you’re back again,” The Doctor stated with a small sigh. “Being with you is an emotional rollercoaster.”  
War chuckled. “I’m sorry. I think we should get some rest, shall we?”  
And the Doctor agreed.

Minutes later, the older man was lying down on the bed, his right hand lazily caressing the back of the Warrior, who was sitting on the edge of the mattress. “Are you okay?” He asked, slightly furrowing his eyebrows.  
He couldn’t see the man’s eyes staring blankly ahead, some strange light in them.  
War paused. “Yes. Let’s just sleep.” And he laid down, still facing the opposite side.  
The Doctor wasn’t going to lie to himself: he was worried. But he also knew that regenerating could be hard on the body and on the soul, and the first hours following it could be confusing. Maybe War just needed some sleep, as the Time Lord finally convinced himself of, now being able to fall asleep after all that time.

Something was off. Some rustling in the darkness, some sort of glimmer in the night. Was he dreaming? What was he dreaming about? A dark place, a wall, the warmth of bedsheets… It wasn’t a dream. The rustling was the sound of steps. The glimmer was a blade. And the one holding it… Was Warrior.  
He barely managed to roll to one side quick enough to dodge the axe that sliced right through the pillow he was resting his head on. “Lights!” He exclaimed, but nothing happened. “I… Deactivated the system…” A raspy, deep voice said somewhere in the darkness. “So… It wouldn’t have woken you… Up…”  
It was Warrior’s voice, but the Doctor was somewhat sure it wasn’t actually him. That he was being possessed again or something like that. He wouldn’t have hurt him, not ever! The blade of the axe missing his neck by about one inch made him realise that wasn’t the moment to think about it. He had to run, as always. So he leaped out of the bed and stormed into the corridor outside, hearing War’s steps following him quickly. The bathroom was the only option; he rushed inside and locked the door, suddenly noticing he wasn’t hearing the Warrior anymore. He wasn’t running.  
Instead, another noise replaced the man’s steps: the screeching of steel against the wall of the spaceship. It was getting closer and closer.  
“D o c t o r…” The voice of the Warrior arrived to the Doctor’s ears muffled by the wall.  
Then, suddenly, the axe broke through the door, its blade sticking out dangerously near the man’s head. The Doctor pushed himself off the door and leaned against the opposite side of the room.  
“D O C T O R…” War repeated, before the axe came down a second time, then a third, starting to open holes in the door.  
“H E L L O…” He blurted out, looking through the holes. “I T ‘ S M E…”  
The Doctor noticed his eyes weren’t changing colour. It really was him-  
War’s arm burst in from the bigger hole, trying its best to grab the Time Lord’s neck.  
“War! Stop, this-- This isn’t you!” He cried out, pushing himself further against the cold wall.  
And then, all of a sudden, everything stopped. War’s whole body seemed to tense up completely.  
“I… Have to go…” He then said, retrieving his limb from the broken door and then stepping away.  
Then, the Doctor could only hear the sound of the axe being dropped to the ground and the TARDIS door being opened and closed.  
He was gone.

 

((To be continued.))


	2. 7x01 - Psycho Who?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The man formerly known as the Warrior is on the loose. Two U.N.I.T. agents go in search of someone who could help them find him.

The wind ran through the man’s hair, as his feet did the same on the ground. Meter after meter, his bare soles made contact against the cold ground of the open countryside, covering a bigger distance each and every minute. Speaking of minutes, he didn’t really know just for how long he’d been running; minutes, hours, everything was just so confusing. Footprint after footprint, as he made his way towards some unknown destination, he was like in some kind of trance, unable to remember anything of concrete previous to the last step, so he had no idea of where he was coming from. Thinking about it, he had no idea of who he was either. Though he was conscious about what most of his body looked like by now, everything else was pretty much a mystery.  
All he knew was that he was running: from what or whom, or to where, was utterly obscure.

**_\-------In another place, in another time…-------_ **

A pair of black man shoes stepped onto a sand covered beach, immediately followed by another pair of feet, which were wearing leather woman boots. The sound of the sea waves crashing onto the land filled the air, along with the brackish smell of a coast in southern England. A light breeze blew over the beach and the two people standing on it.  
“Are we really sure he’s here?” Asked the woman in a british accent, pushing a lock of long, wavy, dark hair away from her face, while rubbing the sleeves of her jacket and narrowing her eyes slightly at the taller, dark skinned man next to her, who turned to look at her, nodding.  
They had received the order a couple of days earlier, sealed in a metallic suitcase not bigger than a human laptop. When the two had opened it, they had known what their objective was, along with specific coordinates of where to find it. Their target had been on the run for months now, but only from their point of view of time and space; for that man, it could have been decades. When Jim Martin had first read the informations which had been sent to him and his colleague, Nora Hallow, he was certain there had been a mistake. A man like that wouldn't have gone to hide in such a god forsaken place, he had thought. But then, when he had actually started thinking about it, he'd found himself noticing that, knowing all of his previous… Records, it made sense that he'd have gone in some unknown British town, almost invisible if you didn't know what or where to look for.  
So Jim had accepted the orders, and Nora had done the same, and now they were there, alone to not seem suspicious, but ready to call for backup if the target would have created problems.  
“Remember: we need him /alive/. No matter what happens, you go after him and you capture him, is that clear?” Had asked the chief of their sector of U.N.I.T.  
“Yes.” They had answered. Nora had given Jim a worried look; his past few cases had always ended up with much more violence than they had required, and this one was too delicate to mess up. She hoped her collegue knew it.  
“The Intel said so.” The man of colour answered, his accent different from hers, American, puffs of condensed breath coming out of his mouth as he spoke.  
Nora shrugged. “I just don't understand why he'd come right here, I mean…” She paused, staring at the small town behind the beach. “He's been pretty damn good at hiding in plain sight until now, why didn't he just rent a flat in London?”  
“He's desperate. His whole situation is desperate, haven't you read the report?” She nodded. “Plus,” he continued “We are desperate as well. We can't do this without him.” And with that, he began walking, on the sand, towards one of the small houses that were closer to the beach than the others in town, while the woman followed him. He knew exactly where to go and what to do. The two approached the door of one of those houses, one that had its walls painted of a dull shade of yellow, as if it once had been obnoxiously bright but had now lost its shine; had it been slightly more unkept, it would have looked abandoned. Nora looked up at one of the four windows of the ground floor and felt her blood freeze: the white curtain on the other side of the glass had moved, closing itself and going back to block the view to the inside of the house. All the way to the front door, the woman felt eyes on her. He knew they were coming, he knew and he had been expecting them, waiting for them to show up.  
She took a deep breath as Jim knocked on the wooden surface of the door, and as she kept staring at the brown paint, expecting it to swing open any moment now, she heard nothing. Not a sound came from within the house. Suddenly she realised something: maybe the man had fled, right after he’d seen them, they both knew he could have done that pretty easily. All of the conjectures and assumptions she’d made until then came crashing down on her back, and she felt weak, she felt like her knees were going to give in and she was going to fall down right there, on the grey, cold concrete.  
“Nora.” Jim’s voice brought her back. “You okay?”  
For a second, the woman was confused, her eyes wandering from place to place, seemingly not able to stop, but then, finally, she nodded, shakingly. “Y-yes.”  
And right then, sudden as a flash, steps were approaching the door from the inside, getting closer and closer, until eventually it swung open, revealing the man the two agents had been searching for for all that time.  
Deep, brown eyes stared at them from behind a pair of rectangular glasses, hair of almost the same colour swayed in the light breeze, not anymore constricted by the same old hair gel.  
“Jim Martin, Nora Hallow, U.N.I.T.” The black man stated. “Doctor, I need you to come with us.”  
The Time Lord did not even blink. Instead, he slightly gulped, pressing his lips together underneath the beard which had grown on his face for quite some time now, and took his glasses off, unconvering a few new wrinkles around his eyes. He shook his head slightly, his right hand already on the door. “Go away.” he simply said, before turning around and pushing the door closed behind himself.

 

“Wait!” Jim said quickly, his left hand springing forward to stop the door from closing and then pushing it back open, before finally taking a step inside. “We need to talk to you.” He continued, slowly following the other man, who had previously disappeared into the large living room of the house, where a big glass window showed a rather small garden, in which nothing but grass grew. The Doctor had sunk back into the armchair he had previously got up from and had picked up the book he was reading, his glasses once again on his nose. Nora, who had followed Jim, cleared her throat awkwardly. “H-hello?” She asked, glancing down at the man’s book: The Shining by Stephen King. Unwillingly, she arched an eyebrow and, when she looked back up, the Time Lord was staring at her. She flinched, her heart almost skipping a beat.  
Jim didn't notice. “We need you to help us--”  
“I don't care. Whatever it is, whatever alien menace Earth has to face now, I retired.” The Doctor readily replied.  
“--with a psycho.” The dark skinned man finished. He swore he'd seen something dart in the Doctor’s eyes, before the man went back to reading his book.  
“Question is: do you wanna go back?” The woman stated, hoping the answer she'd imagined wasn't going to be the real one.  
The Doctor turned a page after licking his index finger. “I said I retired.”  
“You can't retire, Doctor, it's basically your job to save the universe.” Jim replied, rather sharply.  
“And what's the U.N.I.T.’s job supposed to be, knocking on old men’s doors and convincing them to capture a psycho? Like you can't do it on your own?”  
“We-” Nora gulped “We know your involvement with him.”  
“There is no such thing as my involvement with him, Nora. I don't care about him anymore.”  
“Why?” She furrowed her eyebrows “We only know that he left you and then he--”  
Jim shut her up with a gesture of his hand.  
“Doctor. The man we are looking for isn't the man you used to know, we saw that. We saw what he's done. And frankly, since he's done nothing to you, we thought you'd have already been out searching for him as well.”  
“Well, I'm not. You got your answer, now kindly do get out of my house.”  
“But why?!” Nora clenched her jaw, while already feeling her eyes tear up. She cursed herself for that childish personality of hers. She knew she had to keep it together. “Why aren't you looking for a way to bring the man you knew back? You would have done something for every other companion of yours! Why aren't you doing anything for the one you actually care abo--”  
SLAM.  
The book with Jack Nicholson’s grinning face on it was abruptly closed, leaving nothing but silence in the room.  
“Get out.”  
Nora nodded quickly, already on her way back to the door, when Jim stopped her. “I know why you're still here.”  
The Doctor arched one eyebrow, but still kept his eyes fixated on the font of the book’s title. His silence invited the other man to continue.  
“You're scared. You're scared he'll do something to you. We know he's tried to kill you before, now you're scared he'll actually finish the job.”  
A couple of seconds passed, before the Time Lord’s lips curled into a smirk and then he began laughing. “Jim Martin, tell me something, have you ever read one file about me? Do you know your target at all?”  
Nora nodded, nudging her collegue in the arm. “He's right. What you said… It’s just not him.”  
“Death doesn't scare me, Jim, it never has.”  
“Then what is it? Why are you hiding?” The U.N.I.T. agent burst out, grinding his teeth.  
“He's afraid to see him die again.”  
The Doctor’s face entirely dropped.  
Jim blinked. “What?”  
Nora's tone raised a bit. “He's afraid he'll see him die again. He doesn't want to go through that again, and maybe he thinks all of this is his fault.”  
Returning to stare ahead of himself blankly, the Doctor swallowed. “You two, sit down.”  
The two obliged, one of them confidently, the last one quite awkwardly.  
“Now,” the Time Lord said, closing his eyes as he pulled his glasses off “give me all the information you have about the Warrior.”  
Jim and Nora glanced at each other, before the man started speaking, as usually happened.  
“We found the first record about 6 months ago, but he's been travelling through time as well, so we don't know how much he's been around. Anyway, when our computers finally found a trace of him, it was in the 1970s, and he wasn't doing as well as he's doing now.”  
Then, he explained.

**_\-------1974-------_ **

“Here's your milk, sir!” The young man at his door exclaimed gleefully, handing him the box of six bottles filled with white liquid.  
“Thank you.” The man on the doorstep smiled lightly. “You must be hungry, it's almost eight in the morning. Maybe you’d like something to eat?” He then asked.  
The milkman blinked. “Oh, I don't think I can, sir, I'm already late on my deliveries--”  
“Come on, it'll only be a couple of minutes, you must eat, son, or you won't get to the end of the day!”  
Huffing slightly, the young man agreed. “Fine. You're too kind, sir.”  
“Oh, forget about it!” The older man replied, cackling while the other one stepped inside and he closed the door behind him. “You won't get to the end of the day anyways.”  
It was quick. He was quick. The kitchen knife in his pocket slid into his hand so fast, it cut the air so silently, it pierced the soft skin of the milkman’s neck so smoothly, so nicely… And the blood flowed out copiously, painting the white clothes of a splendid shade of red. God, how amazing that felt, how great he felt at the capability of taking a life so easily, so quickly. How almost orgasmic the sensation was, oh, how utterly fantastic… But so short, so easily corrupted, it… Wasn't enough.  
It wasn't until later, when the man once called the Warrior was sitting at his kitchen table, trembling uncontrollably, that he finally came back to his senses. He was staring blankly ahead, and the only sounds he could hear were the beating of his heart through his ears, his teeth rattling and… Something else, some sort of tapping on the wood of the table underneath him. What could have it been? He slowly looked down and everything came back. Small, pure red drops were falling onto the wooden surface slowly, one after the other, from his hands, which were completely covered in the same liquid. He gasped, getting up from the chair, causing it to fall loudly onto the floor. That's when he saw the rest. A large pool of the liquid entered the kitchen from the corridor outside. Still shaking, the man made his uncertain way to it, one stumbling step after the other. All the way to the pool, he hoped it wouldn't have been true, that he was just imagining things but, as he turned around the corner, reality came crashing down on him like every time before.  
The corpse of the milkman laid motionless in the corridor, surrounded by blood. It was everywhere: floor, walls, even the ceiling, where the spurts from the arteries had reached higher. The knife was still stabbed into the man’s chest, right next to where a big chunk of meat had been cut -but mostly ripped- off. The taste of blood in his mouth and the drops falling onto his chest reminded him what he'd done with the heart. He felt the urge to throw up everything.  
It wasn't the first time.  
“Come on, buddy, clean it all up like always, we've got a busy day ahead of us.”  
“Yes.” He said, to apparently no one, before stumbling forward and grabbing the dead boy by his shirt. He couldn't have been more than 25 years old.  
He dragged him all the way past the kitchen, noticing that the clock on the wall struck 11am. Three hours. The blank gaps were getting shorter.

It was a mess, as always, but a couple of hours later he had cleaned it all up. He was also getting faster at it, which made him unknowingly happy. The more he kept his head busy -even if it was with scrubbing blood off the floor like a psychopath Cinderella- the less he thought about it all, the less he hated it the next time. He had cleaned every speck of the house and even repainted the walls, but he still had to take care of the body and the dirty clothes.  
As always, he knew what to do: dismembering a corpse with a circular saw wasn't that hard. Dumping the parts in the nearby woods without anyone finding them? Slightly harder. Getting rid of all the dirty clothes? Easy, but annoying. Maybe he should've started to kill while naked, he thought that night, while throwing the last severed limb in the darkness of the forest. He was a good looking man, he could've probably hooked up with someone and killed them before.  
“Or after.”  
Or during.  
“I like how you think.”  
“Of course you do. You're in my head.” He said, not too loud, while standing on the porch of his house.  
“I could still hate it. Now, do you remember what you have to do tomorrow?”  
The man formerly called the Warrior nodded, furrowing his eyebrows. “Exterminate two more people.”  
“Good boy. The gaps are getting shorter, you'll be capable of getting rid of the bodies too if you hurry. Plus, the new method you thought of will be helpful. Now go rest.”

 

The day after, Jack -as his neighbors had learned to call him, as he couldn't have used the name Warrior for obvious reasons- woke up in a literal lake of sweat. Not that he hadn't gotten used to it, since it happened every night since… Well, since he'd arrived there, but it still was a bit of a pain in the ass. In time, he'd given up sleeping fully clothed, as he always had to wash whatever he'd wear in the morning, but it didn't solve the problem of the soaking wet sheets.  
“Rise and shine.”  
In response, he sat up with a grunt, hair sticking to his damp forehead; he needed a shower. The man walked to the small bathroom of his house, while small droplets of sweat fell down onto the floor that felt so cold underneath his bare feet. He got into the shower and turned the cold water on. He couldn't stand the hot water anymore, not after waking up that way for so long, so he'd just take an ice cold shower every morning: it helped him awaken his body. Jack let the water fall on his skin, washing away all the filth he had expelled through the sweat during the night and, when he was finished, he stepped outside, not bothering to dry himself off yet. Instead, he stared at his naked body in the mirror.  
He liked it: strong, muscular, hairy, manly. And those eyes, they would have made anyone fall in love with him: good.  
He didn't remember much of his past, just enough to know what he was. A Time Lord, of course, the voice in his head had told him everything; he had had other bodies before but, as much as he could remember, this one was one of his favourites. Almost unconsciously, he lifted a hand, which went to lightly caress his wet skin, from his broad shoulders down to his lower stomach. It felt good, it felt… Divine. Like his body was that of a god, like he was a god himself.  
“This is not the moment to play with yourself. Get dressed.”  
He was brought out of his little fantasy.  
“Yes.” He obeyed.  
After getting dressed, the man made his way to the front door, which he opened, finding the daily newspaper.  
“Another disappearance: serial killer strikes again?” said the front page title  
“The police are currently questioning more people regarding the sudden disappearance of Mark McLoughlin, 23 years old man. He was seen last while on his usual job as a milkman yesterday.”  
The rest of the text explained how his family were really distraught and had been searching for him all night long, while a picture of him next to the article displayed what he looked like.  
Jack felt a cold shiver down his spine.  
“Don't panic, now. They've known of all of the others, they'll find the body eventually, but they won't be able to link it back to you.”  
“Y-you're wrong…” Jack said, slamming the door closed and backing away into the living room “Th-they'll know I'm the last person he saw… They'll find me…”  
“Oh shut up, you big baby. You'll just need to kill your neighbors.”  
“S-shut up!” He yelled, suddenly finding himself with his back against the bookshelf that covered half of the wall. He turned around and saw a framed picture of what looked like a happy family.  
They weren't so happy when he had arrived and slaughtered them all in their sleep, then hiding the bodies as he had done with all the other victims after them.  
“You made me kill all of them.”  
“You never refused.”  
“S-SHUT UP!”  
“Oh, you're too good. Grow u-”  
“Shhhhh!” Jack shushed himself. He had heard something. He quickly rushed to the window and moved the curtain to look outside: four police cars were stationing in front of his house. “They're here for me. They know.”  
“You know what to do.”  
And it was true: the man stormed into the kitchen and opened the door that gave on the backyard, which was fenced; on the other side, the woods. That way, it was going to look like he'd fled there.  
Instead, he made his way upstairs right as he heard the first knock on the door. While the policemen broke through the entrance, he was already in the attic, he was grabbing the large white robe that covered a blue taxi and he was pulling it off, then entering his time machine.  
And with that, he was gone in a flash.

**_\-------2016-------_ **

“How many?” The Doctor asked.  
“That town had 2000 people before he arrived.” Nora said.  
“I asked how many.”  
She understood and gulped, while Jim chimed in.  
“Fifty.”  
The Time Lord turned his head to look outside. It looked like it was about to rain.  
“Doctor?” Jim called him, staring at him.  
“All those people… And they never caught him?”  
“They were about to, the whole thing ended up on the news, that's how we found him, but just before they were about to catch him, he--”  
“Disappeared. He still has his TARDIS.”  
“Of course.”  
“Well, if you want to find him, you'll need a gallifreyan tracking device. Quite hard to find.”  
“What about you? Will you help us?” Asked Nora.  
The Doctor paused. “What else have you got on him?”  
“I'll tell you everything if you come with us. Doctor, we need you. The world needs you. You're the only one who can stop him and maybe even turn him back to normal, otherwise the U.N.I.T. would have straight up found him and killed him. The only reason our superiors aren't doing that is because they are scared of you.”  
“Please,” Nora's voice got the Time Lord’s attention “we can't let other people die, he--” she gulped “--he killed more than just fifty people. He's been on the run since then and we only know of certain things, he could have gone back before U.N.I.T. even existed and killed more! We have to stop him before he causes some major cracks in the time vortex!”  
“Nora!” Jim burst out “You told him too much!” Then, he sighed. “Well, I hope this makes you say yes. Are you coming with us?”  
The Doctor, having listened to each and every one of Nora's words, finally decided. The walls he had built after that night War had run away fell down under the spark of what he once had been, a spark which had been hiding underneath for far too long and that was now turning into a flame. He couldn't let the whole universe die because of the Warrior.  
The Time Lord parted his lips, taking a brief breath.  
“Yes.”

((To be continued.))


	3. 7x02 - Scream King

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor, Jim and Nora go on their first "adventure" together: 1946, New York.  
> Meanwhile, the Warrior is still running away.

It took Nora all of her strength not to jump up in content. The man accepting their offer was all she’d been looking forward to during the past few weeks. Instead, she just shifted her hands to rest on her lap in anticipation, while clenching her jaw to hold back a smile. Meanwhile, Jim could only arch an eyebrow; the Doctor wasn’t a man known for immediately agreeing to concepts and surrendering. No, Jim knew there was more to it. And it was about to come.  
“But,” the Time Lord began, making the agent’s assumptions come true “We will do this my own way.”  
The man of colour didn’t object, while the woman sort of flinched, looking slightly upset over the reaction that her colleague had instead predicted; yet, she didn’t voice her opinion, receiving a small nudge by Jim, who apparently knew what he was doing.  
“Explain.”  
One look from the Doctor after, the two agents were lead outside of the living room and into the back yard where, in the meantime, the sky had finally turned dark, as the sun had set somewhere behind the mountains in the distance. The man and the woman looked at the alien with a puzzled expression, as they had no idea of what was going to happen. They watched as the Doctor moved his right hand to shift something out of his pocket.  
Jim’s hand ran straight to the gun attached to the back of his belt.  
Nora gulped again, mirroring him but still managing to be slower than him.  
“I don’t want to hurt you.” The Doctor said lowly, slowling his movements down as he pulled his famous sonic screwdriver out of his trousers. “Trust me, Jim.”  
The female U.N.I.T. agent lowered her hand, while the man narrowed his eyes, before doing the same. He was pretty confident about his fast reflexes, but he could never know what the Doctor was planning; no one could, except maybe for the same man they were trying to track down.  
As he saw he was safe enough to use his device, the Time Lord pressed the small button on it and its blue light shone through the darkness for a few seconds, accompanied by the usual annoying noise. Then, the agents’ surprised eyes saw a staircase appear next to the Doctor, spiraling all the way up to the sky and further, seemingly going through the clouds. The brown eyed man gestured to it with his head. “No backup, no unnecessary violence, no U.N.I.T. armies storming through different ages with advanced weapons. Just us three. We can do it if we do it like this.” He explained, looking at Nora first, and then moving to Jim.  
“That’s insane.” The man proclaimed.  
Nora shook her head. “No, he’s right. Think about it, Jim. He would have never come with us and deliberately used our weapons against the Warrior.”  
The Doctor’s hearts seemed to skip a bit, for an instant, at the sound of his name.  
“The only solution is that we go with him.” she finished.  
A few seconds of silence ensued, in which Jim stared at his partner, then finally sighing. “This is crazy. They will know.”  
“I can bring you back here in a second.” Pointed out the Doctor, slightly cocking his head to a side. Nora bit her lip: “We can’t. The tracker on our badges will report our position in time and space to our superiors, unless…” Both of the men frowned, but then realised the woman’s idea when her badge hit the ground in front of her feet.  
“That’s a better idea.” Jim stated, cackling lightly  
“It was literally that simple.” She commented with a smile, stepping forward towards the Time Lord, while the man threw his own badge on the floor, next to the other one. The Doctor didn’t smile, he didn’t show any emotion. Instead, he just said: “Follow me.” and with that, he was gone up the stairs, immediately followed by the two.

It took some time, but there they were, almost on the top step. “Shit, it’s cold.” Jim commented, holding onto the railing and trying his best not to look down. Nora, a few steps ahead of him, gasped as she reached for the end of the staircase. “Jim, you’ve got to see this!” She hollered and, when her partner finally caught up with her, he was pretty impressed too.  
A large platform-- no, a large cloud supported their whole weights and did not let them fall through as they’d expected. In fact, they could stand and walk on it, but that wasn’t the best part: right in the center of it, a blue police box stood proud and tall, with the Doctor already halfway in. “Come on!” He called, finally stepping inside.  
The two agents had of course heard of the TARDIS, but had never seen it in person. And now there it was, ready for them to just hop on board and go travel in time, even though they had been taught to avoid the man in the blue box, to fear him, sometimes even to fight him. Still, Nora had always wished to meet him and to fly away with him. She almost couldn’t believe it was about to become true.  
A few, still uncertain steps on the cloud later, the two agents walked into the time machine, standing in awe in the middle of the way as the Doctor sprung from side to side of the console room, activating every useful switch, lever and button until the floor started shaking uncontrollably, forcing Nora and Jim to hold onto the railings on the sides of the path to the center of the room. “Where to?” The Time Lord yelled to be heard over the sound of the engine.  
“What?” Jim yelled back, not having heard a thing. Luckily, Nora had.  
“1974!” She answered, just as loudly, while the Time Lord flicked one more switch. “Give me another one!”  
“Why can’t we go to that one?” Asked Jim, starting to not feel really well from all that shaking. “You already told me the story and how it ended up with him escaping.” Doc explained, somehow managing to stand perfectly still even though the TARDIS floor felt like it had been rotated of 45 degrees. “It’s a fix point in time, we can’t change it!”  
“1946, then!” Nora shouted. “New York, Manhattan!”  
The Doctor looked at the screen in front of him before pulling the last lever. “Allons-y, then.”

 

**_\-------New York City, 1946-------_ **

 

Burning alcohol poured down his throat as he set the empty glass down on the counter, sort of roughly in doing so. He then wiped his damp lips with the back of his hand, while gesturing towards the bartender to bring him another drink with the other one. Though being only on his third glass of whiskey, his hands were lightly shaking, as he noticed when he finally rested them both on the wooden counter, but he also knew it wasn’t because of the alcoholic beverage; in fact, the man who had spent most of his time there in the Big Apple hiding from basically any kind of human contact -except for the other people living in his same building, who had recently learned to call him Michael- could hold his alcohol pretty well and wasn’t one to feel sick nor drunk pretty easily. No, he knew exactly why his hands were shaking, and he knew it very well.  
“You know alcohol won’t keep me away, buddy.”  
The man apparently called Michael had to keep himself from shouting in the middle of a crowded pub. He remained silent, hoping with all his heart that the voice would just leave him alone for at least one night.  
“And you know that you can’t ignore me for long.”  
The voice was right. It was right and Michael hated it. He’d been staying there for about a week now, and every single day it kept coming back. And the worst thing wasn’t the voice itself, but instead the impelling urge it brought along, the craving he’d been so good at ignoring up until now, when he had decided to spend the evening out in the city but had quickly regretted it when the need to do what he’d been avoiding had come back as he was walking down a street which was as crowded as the bar he was sitting in now. Somehow, he’d stupidly thought getting insanely drunk would have kept his mind off of it, so he had just stormed inside the first pub, mildly startling some of the people when he’d slammed the door open.  
“What made you think a place full of people was the right choice?”  
Again, the voice was right and he hated himself. He hated himself for not having thought about it, and was now quickly falling into an abyss of self-loathing for not having even tried to protect those innocent people. Because if one part of him was still faithful to what had once been his pledge, the other one wanted to abandon it and follow the voice. And the last one was getting stronger each day.  
“Come on now, buddy. You know what to do.”  
And up he was, off the stool and looking around from behind the lifted collar of his coat, scanning the crowd with careful eyes, looking for something to…  
There they were: a couple, man and woman, sitting at a table and engaging in what looked like a conversation that was way too romantic for the place they were in. They were lovely. Michael could only see the man’s dark hair from behind his back, but as he stepped a bit to the side, he noticed a sharp, clean jawline, a slightly aquiline nose and a pair of green eyes. He was handsome, she was gorgeous. The woman had long, blonde hair underneath a small brown hat, piercing blue eyes and pale complexion that made her plump, red lips stand out even more.  
“They look so in love, such a shame. Well, at least they’ll go together.”  
Michael tried his best not to listen to the voice and to focus more on what he was doing rather than what he was about to do. He slowly approached the table from behind the man and, once he’d gotten there, he noticed the man’s broad shoulders and the woman’s voluptuous breasts, yet covered by her blouse. He slowly lifted his gaze to meet hers. She was staring at him, her eyebrows furrowed underneath the hat, and the man in front of her had obviously noticed; he turned around and began glaring at Michael, who moved his stare to him.  
For a moment, it seemed like the two men were just about to burst into a bad fight that was going to wreck the whole place. Instead, something happened. Something had thrown water onto the spark of rage and had lit another kind of flame. Suddenly, and almost perfectly coordinated, the couple stood up from their chairs and grabbed their coats. Michael didn’t even show one sign of emotion. He just turned around and headed towards the exit door, followed by the two without anyone asking anything.  
The walk back to his apartment was relatively short; he walked ahead of the couple and nobody talked. Michael was forcing himself to look at them very little, as there was something in them that kept trying to awaken some kind of memory in him, something that the voice inside of him kept shutting down each time.  
“Isn’t this amazing? Oh, this night will be fantastic! Aren’t you excited?”  
Michael didn’t answer.  
A few minutes of silence after, they had walked up the five sets of stairs to his flat and he’d opened the door quickly, letting the couple in and then finally closing it behind them. He walked past them through the small living room and into the narrow corridor that lead to his bedroom and, as soon as they all got in, he stared at the two once more, as to give them some sort of order, which they obliged immediately.  
Both the man and the woman began stripping down until they were standing naked in front of Michael, exposing their beautiful bodies to him. Then, they stepped to each side of him and started doing the same to him as he remained still, only moving occasionally to help them. It had gotten to the point where the woman had finished sliding off Michael’s trousers and the man had taken off his shirt and they were both planting soft kisses onto his skin, kisses that quickly turned into licking and rubbing.  
From there, Michael’s mind went almost numb. It was like waking up in the middle of the night because of a nightmare and spending the rest of the night in a constant cycle of falling back asleep and drowsiness, where he spotted some details of what was going on. Yet, they kept getting mixed up and confused, while also being scarred in the back of his mind. He was pretty sure he’d have remembered everything later, but for now it was just glimpes of naked bodies, barely visible in the dim light of the streetlamps outside, slowly but steadily moving, intertwining, melting in embraces to then get separated again; and the noises, they sounded so strange, like he’d been taking them out of context, like he didn’t know what was happening around him: he heard screams and moans and growls and groans, they almost sounded… Beastly. But he enjoyed every confused second of it all.

 

But then, the next time he felt himself coming back to his senses, he saw his own arm reach underneath the pillow, he felt the cold metal piercing into his fingers before they could get to where they wanted to be. Then, quick as a flash, his arm swung to a side and, next thing he knew, warm, red liquid was pouring onto his stomach, running down the man’s neck, below a pair of widely open eyes. The woman stopped when the man’s body fell lifeless to her side, yet didn’t do anything. She just stared at Michael, as if she was waiting another order like the one before. That was until he sat up, climbed onto his knees, and finally shoved the dripping blade into her soft, waiting chest. Her body was shaken by spasms, until her eyes eventually rolled backwards and she fell off the blade, pushed by Michael’s hand.  
He stayed there, perfectly still, looking down at his hands with an expressionless face. He had stopped shaking for a while now, and everything was silent, even his own head.  
“That truly was amazing.” The voice spoke, only this time not coming from inside his mind, but from somewhere in the dark room instead. As Michael looked up, he saw himself, standing in front of the bed. The sight of his own naked body talking to him made him blink to prove it wasn’t some sort of hallucination, but the clone was still there after, the only differences from him being that he wasn’t almost completely soaked in blood and that his eyes looked empty, as if they didn’t have the same colour as normal human eyes.  
The other Michael worked his way onto the bed, pushing the dead woman off of it and kneeling in front of the man with the knife, who had meanwhile sat back down and was now staring at him in confusion.  
“You’re almost ready.” He said, smirking in some sort of gentle way “A few more and the time for me to take over will come.”  
“W...What..?” The actual Michael stuttered, only to be silenced by his copy’s index finger.  
“Listen to me, buddy. Soon enough, you’ll lose what you think is control. We’ll have to fight for your mind and we’ll go through a phase in which none of us will prevail against the other. We’ll be an animal.” The clone continued and, with Michael’s terror, he got closer. “What... “ He blurt out “What will happen next?”  
“Oh,” the other one cackled “You’ll see.” And with that, he was onto him, lips crashing together and legs straddling the other’s lap.  
And Michael liked it.

**_\-------_ **

The flash of a camera was blinding for a full second even after it had already taken the picture and the detective had to blink for a few more to regain the sight of a crime scene he’d wished to forget the moment he had walked into the room. The naked bodies of a young couple laid onto a formerly white bedsheet, now completely drenched in blood. Yet, the corpses weren’t as messy as everything else in the room: even though the two fatal wounds to the woman’s chest and the man’s neck were clearly visible and full of dried up red liquid, the couple wasn’t sprawled on the bed as if they’d been caught in the act and killed right there and then, they were instead laid on their sides, their empty eyes facing each other in an endless gaze and their hands joined together between them, fingers intertwining at chest height. Even the woman’s hair was spread out almost artistically next to her head and all of this made the scene look like a really macabre painting coming straight from a nightmare… Or some really strange Penny Dreadful from the Victorian England.  
“What do you think, Higgins?” Asked a voice on his side, bringing him back to reality and stopping his train of thought, which left him speechless for an instant.  
Monroe Higgins wasn’t the kind of man to admit publicly to be deeply disgusted by blood, as his job didn’t really allow it. In fact, what kind of sane person would be a detective in the NYPD if they knew they’d be susceptible to the sight of blood? Answer: Monroe Higgins. At 27 years old and with a small apartment in Brooklyn, he’d say he was pretty happy with himself, having the job he wanted and a life that suited him pretty well. But lately, the crime rates had sprung up almost everywhere in the city and he’d had lots of work and basically none of sleep. So there he was, standing in the room of horrors in some godforsaken building in the Bronx, with the third coffee that morning still in circulation, staring at two corpses with eyes that had bags under their bags. So of course he’d been spacing off again on a crime scene.  
“Uh.. The bodies were clearly moved after being killed.” He stated, blinking a few more times to try and wake himself up a bit. Hearing nothing but silence, the turned his head to look at captain Louis Clark next to him, who was staring at him with an arched eyebrow. “That was quite obvious, don’t you think?” The other man said, with a certain tone of sourness. The detective knew he was being judged now, so he forced himself to try a little harder. “The wounds were inflicted from the front, both of them.”  
The captain nodded. “You thinking murder-suicide?”  
“It could be, but I’m not sure who was the murdered and who was the suicide.”  
“Think about it.” the taller man commented, gesturing towards the two bodies. “Look at the wounds.” Around the two men, agents kept coming in and going out of the room, searching for additional evidence. Monroe did as the captain had told him and realised something. “She killed him and then killed herself. Slicing your own throat that way-” he pointed at the dead man’s neck “-is hard, while stabbing yourself in the heart is way easier.” Clark nodded approvingly. “Why do you think she did it?”  
“Uh, I don’t know, maybe he was cheating on her, she found out and killed him, then felt guilty and commited suicide.”  
“But why having sex with him first?” Higgins had no idea.  
“Captain,” one of the agents chimed in from behind them, holding a plastic bag with a bloody knife in it “we found the murder weapon.”  
“Where was it?” Asked Monroe, and the agent pointed at the narrow corridor behind himself with his free thumb. “Next to the couch, in the living room.”  
“Send it to Peterson, see if we can get any prints or dna from it.” The captain instructed the agent. Hearing the name of the forensics expert made Monroe’s blood turn cold in his veins. He hated that man with every bit of his soul and even though he was an important asset to the department, he was the most obnoxious motherfucker in the whole city. Not even considering the racism that was a default setting in most of the policemen, he had this vibe to him that just made him unbearable to Monroe. Worst thing was, he was the only one who thought that, as every single person in the NYPD loved the guy. But not Monroe. No, he knew there was something bad about him, he just knew. The detective sighed, bracing himself mentally for the encounter which he’d have had to endure sooner or later and finding himself hoping that the authopsy would have taken more time than usual. At least, he thought, he had something else to worry about for now, for example, doing his job. “Let’s get back to the station and file the report.” The captain suggested, and Monroe followed him back outside of the crime scene, staring absent mindedly at his back as he walked behind the man. Captain Louis Clark was a 40-something years old, pretty good-looking man. Short, salt and pepper hair stuck out of his cocked hat, which almost covered his thick eyebrows, right above his icy blue eyes. He kept a clean shaven face and it made his prominent jawline stand out. Monroe was kind of envious of his good looks and, the more he looked at his back, the more he wished he had broader shoulders too; instead, the detective was a skinny but lean guy, pretty average in both height and weight. He was way too lazy to shave every single morning, so having a light stubble was an inevitable consequence, though he didn’t really mind. He had deep, dark brown eyes and hair to match. If you’d have asked around, most women wouldnt’ have found him completely repulsive, yet he’d never been the over confident type and, each and every time the occasion to ask a girl out on a date presented itself, he was too shy or self conscious to commit to it. He’d been pretty close to talk to one really beautiful red headed girl, once, but every time he’d looked at her, he’d felt life creeping away from him, as his knees became weak and his heart skipped a few beats. She had a small brooch in the shape of a blooming red rose that matched her hair colour perfectly, the few times he had seen her in the same bar he often went to, the same kind of rose he had been staring for a few minutes now. “Higgins? You alright?” Clark’s voice made him snap out of his trance. Monroe hadn’t even noticed they were outside. “Uh, yes.” He sighed, then breathing in the cool air of that sunny spring day. For an instant, he thought about walking back to the department, as it was indeed a splendid day: flowers were blooming on trees and bushes, birds were chirping, all that stuff. He loved days like that. But he also knew he was short on time and he had to get to work as soon as possible, so he just walked to the same police car he’d gotten there before with the captain, got in and then they took off.

The Doctor stepped into the NYPD station almost like he owned the place, which was something he usually did, when he wasn’t in a good mood. And he really wasn’t; in fact, he hadn’t been in a good mood in weeks, but that was probably obvious, seen his looks and his glares. So the Time Lord walked in through the main door, followed by Jim and Nora, who looked pretty perplexed at their whole situation; of course they’d heard about time travel and had worked around people who had actually travelled through time, ‘special agents’. But it was completely different from effectively doing it, finding themselves in a completely different era and interacting with people from another time, all while being careful not to cause any trouble, of course. In fact, the Doctor had suggested that they’d change into some clothes that were more accurate for the year they were in, especially because 1940s people would have gone crazy seeing Nora wear what she’d normally wear in 2016. Luckily, the Time Lord had enough room in his wardrobe for women’s clothes, which did actually make Jim’s eyebrow, but since his colleague was so happy about getting to wear something her grandma could’ve worn in her youth, he’d chosen not to say anything. In fact, Nora was making a few heads turn anyways, and even if Jim couldn’t help but feel some kind of annoyance towards it, he was glad people weren’t suspicious about them.  
And so the three companions walked up to the front desk of the station, almost every person in there looking at them. The short looking woman behind the glass was no exception. “Can I help you?” She asked, sounding lightly intimidated, and it was then that the Doctor saw Jim reach into his coat to grab a badge that wasn’t there anymore.  
The alien pulled out his psychic paper. “FBI. I’m detective John Smith, these are Jim Martin and Nora Hallow, my colleagues. We’d like to speak to the captain of the murder department.” Seeing the fake badge provided by the paper, the woman didn’t say anything more than a “Of course, please wait a minute.” before she grabbed the phone and quickly dialed a number, finally pressing the receiver to her ear. The Doctor didn’t hear what she said afterwards, because he’d turned to the U.N.I.T. agents. “You heard me. We’re FBI agents and we’re here to investigate the murder. You’ve got all the information so you’ll do most of the talking, but my psychic paper will come in handy again.” The duo in front of him just nodded, Nora’s expression getting a glimpse of an excited smile, when the woman behind the desk told them they were allowed to go upstairs and talk to the captain.

Monroe opened the door to the forensics lab with a slight huff, lingering a bit on the doorstep to delay the meeting with Peterson for as long as he could, but when captain Clark walked past him, glancing at him with a puzzled look, he sighed once again and followed him, letting the door close by itself behind him. The two made their way through the small distance which separated them from a 60-something years old man, with few white hairs on his head, where the balding process hadn’t completely caused the scalp to show, with thick glasses, a lab coat and rubber gloves, currently half-way shoved into some poor dead guy’s intestines. “Doctor Peterson,” Clark began, causing the old man to almost have a heart attack. “O-oh, captain! I didn’t see you there!” He stuttered, removing his hands from the corpse and almost forgetting to take the gloves off before fixing his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “It’s alright, doctor. We came here to tell you that you’ll receive two bodies in the next twelve hours. We need you to tell us everything you find out.” Clark explained, and Peterson looked confused. “We?” It was then that he lowered his nearly blind eyes to Monroe, who clenched his jaw instinctively. “Oh, detective Higgins, good day to you!” The younger man blinked. “Hello, doctor Peterson.” he said, apathetic. Ignoring his reply and not asking anything further, the old man went back to talking to the other policeman. “Of course, captain, I’ll let you know as soon as I have something.”  
“How long ‘til he retires?” Monroe asked, once they were outside of the lab. “I mean, he’s practically blind, how useful is he still?”  
Cackling lightly, Clark patted his shoulder. “He’s an expert and, believe it or not, he’s still too young to retire.” Higgins was about to make another snark comment, but an agent quickly approached them, basically bypassing him and going straight to the captain. Groundbreaking behaviour, around there.  
“Captain Clark, three FBI agents are here, they wish to speak to you about the murdered couple.” The man stated, to which the taller one responded with a slight side smirk. “I wonder how they found out so soon. Well, I’m sure Higgins here can take my place, he probably knows more than me.” He quickly interrupted Monroe’s attempt to protest by saying: “In fact, I must go. I’ve got an urgent press conference to attend to.” With that, the irresponsible policeman was gone down the hallway, leaving Monroe and the agent fairly perplexed. Though strongly disagreeing with his decision, Higgins had to admit that he was right: the detective did know more about the case than the captain, and had often been complimented for his skills in resolving cases, so he kind of knew where he was coming from but still, being alone with three FBI agents wasn’t going to be pleasant at all. But, as lots of other things he had to endure in that department, it was something to be done. So he asked the agent to escort him to them, up the stairs and into the main office, where he saw the two man and the woman standing, looking around and, most of all, looking impatient. The first looked pretty normal, a man who looked about forty, maybe even fifty; the second one slightly surprised him, because he didn’t expect to see a black man in such a high position in the american law-enforcement. Then again, the FBI was probably even more open minded that the NYPD. And the third one, the woman, she was… God, she was gorgeous. Monroe was so taken by her that, as he made his way up to them -but mostly up to her- he didn’t notice he was about to run into a desk, so when he did and it was pretty loud, with papers falling all over along with pens and various other objects, it startled not only Monroe himself, but also the three agents, who turned around at the same time and finally, when the detective looked up from his mess, his eyes met Nora’s and he felt himself nearly fainting. Then, finding the will to man up and approach them, he presented himself. “Good morning, sirs, good morning ma’am, I am detective Monroe Higgins.” He said as he shook the men’s hands -finding the Doctor’s one really cold- and kissed the back of the woman’s, acting as best as his gentleman skills allowed him to. Nora actually found it awfully nice. “Captain Clark couldn’t be here and he’s deeply sorry, but he sent me instead. I am the detective following the case you’re viewing and I’m here to refer everything.”  
Though the Doctor was slightly disappointed in seeing such a small man, for no particularly good reason either, he didn’t show it. He reluctantly shook the detective’s hand back, then waited for him to finish introducing himself before speaking. “We’re investigating a few murders that seem to be connected.” he asked, while Monroe noticed his scottish accent. The detective arched an eyebrow. “You came quick, the bodies were found only last night.” He couldn’t help but ask them. Jim chimed in: “We had a few agents here in New York, just in case.” He had to improvise. “I think they were on the crime scene a bit earlier, maybe you missed them.” Monroe nodded “Probably, you’re right.” He slapped himself mentally for being so stupid, then he had an idea. “Would you like to join me for lunch, agents? We could talk about the case over a nice hamburger.” He said, casting his eyes on Nora by the end of the sentence. The three supposed agents looked at each other quickly and, though the Doctor looked pretty bothered by the idea, they accepted, so Monroe got his coat and his hat, left a message at the reception for the captain and then they were off. The same fresh air he had breathed in earlier was back in his lungs, but Monroe wasn’t going to enjoy it as much, this time around. He turned to the men and woman: “Do you mind if I smoke?” Again, it seemed like the scottish man was about to say something rude, but the other two said they didn’t mind since they were outside, so the detective reached for the pocket on the inside of his coat and fished out a packet of Marlboro and quickly opened it, grabbing one of the cigarettes and putting it between his lips, eventually lighting it and taking the first drag as they all walked towards the other side of the street. “There’s a nice diner not far from here, just follow me.” As they walked, nobody really talked. Monroe hoped to have looked good in front of that beautiful woman and respectful enough to the other two. And well, he had, thing was that Jim was quite pissed by that little man trying to hit on Nora, while Nora felt flattered and a small smile never left her lips as she eyed the detective from time to time. The Doctor just wanted it to be over soon, he felt like they were wasting way too much time going with Higgins, as the man they were after could have already fled to some other year and state. The Time Lord sighed in relief as he realised the diner really wasn’t that far and Monroe estinguished the remaining cigarette with the heel of his shoe, before getting in. They picked a booth that wasn’t too close to other people eating -Higgins figured they wouldn’t have wanted to hear people talking about dead bodies half-way through a raw steak- and finally sat down, Jim and the Doctor on one side and, to Monroe’s pleasure and Jim’s spite, the detective and Nora on the opposite seat. “Thank you.” Nora said with a smile as Higgins let her sit first, smiling back. Noticing Jim’s glare, the Doctor decided to bring the attention back on the subject of their meeting. “Got any lead on the suspect?” The Time Lord asked and once again, the detective nodded his head yes. “Well, the apartment the bodies were found in is owned by a certain Michael Crown, but funny thing is,” and he turned to the woman, finding her looking at him, almost going into full panic and cracking a nervous smile “Thing is... “ He went back to look at Jim, who looked lightly surprised “Nobody seems to know who he is. Our archives have nothing on him, no birth certificate, no prints, nothing.”  
“Fake name?” asked the Doctor.  
“Probably, he also paid in cash.”  
To his surprise, Nora suddenly spoke. “Somebody has to have seen him, right? Did he look anything like this?” Her question had totally caught him off guard for some reason, so he didn’t immediately answer; lucky for him, a waitress approached them right in that moment, asking them what they would have liked to eat, which was a cheeseburger and milkshake for both Jim and Nora -and it disgusted the Doctor a lot- a simple salad for the Time Lord and a cheeseburger for a surprised Monroe as well. As soon as the waitress had left, the woman fished something out of her jacket pocket: a folded paper sheet which turned out to be the drawing of a man, a drawing that made the Doctor’s blood turn freezing cold in his veins. Curly hair, sharp jawline, stubble. The alien clenched his jaw. It was him, it was the Warrior.  
Monroe grabbed the sheet and studied it, then glancing at the Time Lord and noticing his odd reaction. He studied the drawing for a few more seconds, before remembering what one of the people living in the building had said. “Yes, it’s probably him.” The detective then handed the sheet back to Nora, who shoved it back into her pocket. “We should have the results of the tests on the bodies by tomorrow afternoon, maybe you could come by and-”  
“We don’t have time.” The Doctor had interrupted him quite harshly. “This… Criminal could escape again and kill more. We now know what name he goes by and we already knew what he looks like, now we just have to find him.”  
Jim glared at him. “But New York is a big city, and we will need your help to track him down.” Nora nodded. “Jim is right, John. We can’t find him without backup.” The Doctor knew she was right, but only the idea of working with mindless 1940s american policemen really didn’t appeal to him. Still, he accepted anyways, for the greater good and all that jazz.  
So the rest of their lunch went by quite fast and quite calmly, with the four people discussing minor details to the case, such as the condition the bodies were found -which caused a man who was casually walking by to pull a disgusted face- then the murder weapon “Just your common kitchen knife, we found it in the living room.”  
“In the living room?” The Doctor asked, arching one eyebrow “I thought the victims were killed in the bedroom.”  
Monroe nodded. “They were. Apparently whoever the murder was went around the house a bit with the knife in hand before leaving.”  
“Why do you say that?” Nora questioned.  
The detective paused, puzzled by the question. “Because the knife was in the living room.”  
“No, not that.” She cackled “Why do you say ‘whoever the murder was’?”  
“Oh!” Higgins felt his cheeks flushing, to which Jim reacted with a slight roll of his eyes. “Well, because we’re not really sure this Michael Crown was the murderer, we actually thought it could have been a murder-suicide.”  
“Don’t be stupid.” The Time Lord sprung up a bit on his seat after having put down his fork “Nobody kills their significant other and then places themselves artistically next to them.” To this, Jim sighed, while the Doctor continued. “You said you think the woman killed the man and then committed suicide but, as you describe it, the position she was in was pretty unnatural.” Monroe blinked, gulping. Well, captain Clark wasn’t that brilliant after all. The detective then proceeded to mutter something about suicide being one of the first hypothesis to make on a crime scene, but nobody seemed to hear him.  
As they paid for the lunch, Jim caught Nora looking at the NYPD detective more than once and, as he had before, he couldn’t help but feel some kind of annoyance. He kept telling himself that it was merely because he saw his colleague as his little sister -at best- and seeing that stranger flirt with her made his protective instincts go off, yet something about that concept didn’t really fit. He didn’t know what, nor why.  
Monroe waved them goodbye, for now, outside of the diner, telling them about how he would have run straight to the station to inform the captain of the fact that they were indeed looking for a murderer from now on; he also promised to let them know as soon as he got the results of the tests on the bodies, in case they’d have given a few more clues. The three agreed to go question people around the block and to meet back at the station the next morning and so Monroe was off, running most of the way back to the department and up the stairs of the building, until he was stopped by no less than Peterson in the flesh. What a way to ruin the day. Again.  
“I’ve... “ He stuttered most of the phrase “I’ve found something.”  
And so Higgins followed him down to the lab.  
“I don’t think it’s completely relevant to why they were killed but... “ The forensics expert looked anxious as they walked to the slabs the corpses were on. “Just spit it out, Peterson.”  
The old man took a deep breath and then pulled the two white cloths that covered the bodies, revealing their unnaturaly pale skin, which was in contrast with their bright red injuries. “The murderer could have been in some sort of… Deviant relationships with the victims.”  
Monroe blinked. “What does that mean?”  
“I found traces of sexual intercourse on… Both of them.” Peterson weakly pointed at the two bodies. Higgins paused, frowning. “You mean…”  
Peterson nodded, gulping.  
“The murderer fucked them both?”  
“That’s… One way to put it,” The man looked away from the bodies for a moment “But I’m not sure about the implications of it.”  
Startled by the whole revelation, Higgins walked out of the lab after assuring Peterson that he’d have informed the captain. He wasn’t quite sure what do think about it: it was very unusual, for that kind of relationship, to occur, at least he thought so. He made his way to Clark’s office, still unsure on what to tell him.

Nora huffed. They’d spent hours trying to get something out of the people who lived near the building of the crime scene and they’d still gotten nothing at all. They were all tired, though the Doctor showed it less. They’d consumed substantial quantities of coffee throughout the whole afternoon and, now that the sun had set, they were headed back to the TARDIS. “We could’ve just travelled to tomorrow morning, we didn’t need to question all those people.” The Doctor pointed out, rubbing the bridge of his nose.  
“The more we know about who we’re after, the more we get close to catching him.” Jim replied “We need to know if he follows any patterns.”  
Nora looked at him. “Well, today has proven that he doesn’t. Not yet, at least.”  
“Agent Martin!” A familiar voice shouted from across the street. ‘Oh no.’ Jim thought.  
Monroe was running towards them, almost getting hit by not one, but two cars on the way there. As he finally approached them, he took his hat off for a second. “Good evening agents.” He said, smiling at Nora who gently smiled back. “I was walking back home and I saw you, so I thought I’d share the news.”  
The Doctor arched an eyebrow. “What news?”  
“Michael Crown had a relationship with both of the victims.” He announced, kind of wanting to see the look on their faces. There was no particular reaction. Monroe was disappointed.  
“So he might have killed them because of it?” Nora asked.  
“Well, it certainly links him to them and not only to the crime scene.” Jim stated.  
Higgins didn’t want to comment further on the fact that two men and a woman had some kind of deviant, sexual relationship, but he did notice the Doctor’s absent stare.  
Yet, he didn’t say anything about that either. On the other hand, the Time Lord couldn’t have cared less. He now knew that the Warrior was going around having sex with random people and butchering them after, like some sort of big, Gallifreyan black widow; he hated it. Groundbreaking, the Doctor was feeling a negative emotion, such a new thing for him, lately. Well, he thought, at least he was feeling something. Meanwhile, Monroe was about to say something else but he was abruptly shut up by Jim. “Did you hear that?”  
A soft, muffled noise, some sort of meow, maybe from a stray cat, yet not quite accurate. “Yes.” The Doctor said. It came from a nearby alley and the Time Lord knew it certainly wasn’t a cat. “This way.” He added, stepping towards the source of the noise and noticing that both the agents and the detective were all grabbing their guns. If he was right, they wouldn’t have needed them, or at least he hoped so.  
As they entered the alley, darkness surrounded them. Besides their loud -maybe even too loud- steps, another sound could be heard in there: the sound of something wet, the sound a damp mop makes when it hits the floor. But the Doctor doubted it had anything to do with house cleaning. He reached for his screwdriver, finding his hand oddly shaky, and aimed it ahead of himself. He just had to think ‘torch’ and press the button and, in a bright cone of light that tore the darkness apart, there they were: two figures, one knelt over the motionless other one. A pool of dark, dense liquid surrounded the man on the ground and, next to the shoulders of the man who was above him, his lifeless eyes stared empty at the sky. But the Time Lord was focusing on the wrong thing, so he moved his gaze, casting it on the back of the man who was surely eating the corpse’s insides. He felt his lips tremble as realisation crept into him and, when the man’s curly brown hair moved along with his head as its turned around to see who was disturbing him, the bloodied face of the Warrior stared at the Doctor with bloodshot eyes that had nothing human left in them.  
The man kneeling on the ground then let out a loud growl, and the Doctor felt at least a hundred of emotions, all mixed together: anger, hate, denial, nausea, tears sneaking towards his eyes, begging to come out and run down his cheeks and even some sort of low, guttural feeling, starting at the pit of his stomach and running down, down to his lower belly. And that was when the first bullet was shot.  
Bringing him out of his trance, Jim’s gun had been fired, largely missing its target as the Warrior quickly dashed towards the side of the alley, pushing himself onto the wall and climbing it until he suddenly changed direction, rushing sideways and over the four people, three of which were still trying to shoot him down. Instead, the Doctor was still staring blankly ahead, trying to push himself to do something, anything. “Doctor!” He heard Jim call him “We need to go!”  
And before he knew it, they were all running down the street again.  
“What…” Monroe tried to ask “What was that thing?!”  
Jim’s eyes darted around. “Our suspect.” For a second, he didn't even noticed that the Doctor had stopped running.  
“We won't find him here anymore.” The Time Lord said, emotionless. “What does that mean?!” Higgins shouted, panting loudly. “We have to go.”  
“To go?” Nora frowned.  
“Let's get back to the TARDIS.”  
“What?!”  
The Doctor couldn't take it anymore. “LET’S JUST GO!”  
“Doctor, you want to bring him with us?” Jim asked, trying to not sound as irritated as he really was.  
“It's too late to let him go now, he's coming with us.”  
“Wait, wait!” Monroe barked “I'm not going anywhere unless you tell me what on earth is going on!”  
“Monroe..” Nora tried, but the Doctor stepped to the detective. “You want to know everything?” He asked.  
“Y-yes…?”  
“Very well then.” The Time Lord then placed his hands on each side of the other man’s head, closing his eyes.  
As the flow of memories flooded his brain, Higgins wanted to stop, to break away, it was just too much. He just wanted to go away, to forget everything, to sleep all of that away but yet, when the Doctor finally pulled way and looked at him with sad eyes, Monroe found himself wanting nothing but to help him.  
“Are you coming, now?”  
The detective nodded. “But.. I can't just leave my life behind like this.”  
“You could be back in a second. A literal second.” Nora informed him.  
“W-what?”  
A swipe of the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver later, the sound of the appearing time machine filled the air, and then the blue box was there, standing proud and blue in front of the incredulous detective. “This is the… TARDIS..?”  
“Exactly.” Jim nodded.  
Though having seen it in what the Doctor had shown him, Monroe was still pretty amazed as he walked into the bigger on the inside box, looking at everything with curious and surprised eyes.  
“Where are we going?” He asked, smiling widely. The Doctor just looked at Nora, since she was the one who had told him their destination last time.  
“Year 5743, Russia.” She revealed.

**_((To be continued)_ **


	4. 7x03 - Free the Animal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor's research brings Jim, Nora and him to 5743, in Russia. There, the small village that was once Donetsk isn't what it seems...

**_\-------Somewhere in Russia, 5743-------_ **

There was something extremely disturbing in those woods, at night. Had it been the fact that their surroundings were almost pitch black, -if it hadn’t been for their helpful flashlights, which were attached right above the barrel of their guns- or because of the creepy sounds of the nocturnal animals, or even because of the constant paranoia of being attacked by something unknown, then the man who was quite close to peeing his own pants and run back home would’ve understood it. But it wasn’t just being in a decrepit forest full of limbs-resembling branches that scared him -and most of the members of his team, judging by the looks on their faces-; there was something else, some kind of gut feeling they had all had the minute they had stepped into the dense forest: the feeling of being somehow watched, hence the overall paranoia. Somehow they all knew they shouldn’t have been there at all in the first place, but what else can police agents do when a young girl comes back from the woods outside the village, screaming and crying that she’d seen something eating not one, not two, but three human corpses? Well, of course the first thing to do is to calm her down, then try to get her to talk about it; yet, the girl was too shocked to even open her mouth soon after she’d walked into the police station, and the men hadn’t had a chance to know more of the matter. Knowing well enough that it could’ve all been a huge prank, the sheriff had waited, before eventually sending out a small party of policemen, just to check the situation out. The sheriff was a rude, big burly man who didn’t get scared easily, but he was convinced soon enough, when a loud sound, similar in equal parts to a screech, a growl and a roar, lifted off the forest and broke the silence of the night, waking up half of the town. Needless to say the members of the team weren’t too happy to go into the woods at that hour of the night but, as the sheriff had said, it could’ve been a dangerous, rabid animal, and if it had to attack the village, it wouldn’t have been just corpses, the ones it’d have been nibbling on. Such speech didn’t make the situation easier.  
Yet, there they were: six not-so-trained men, armed with six tranquilizer guns, surrounded by utter darkness, with their nerves about to explode and their index fingers twitching on the trigger at the slightest noise. It had taken them a full 15 minutes to finally smell the stench of dead and most of them were already about to throw up; the rest actually did, when they met the sight of three carcasses, covered in blood and lying in pools of their own entrails, eyes rolled blankly towards the black sky, if not popped out and sitting prettily next to their heads. Nauseous, the six men approached the bodies, noticing how many organs were missing from the bodies and weren’t nearby, meaning that the animal had eaten them; speaking of, there was no animal in sight. The men were slightly less scared now. Disgusted, of course, but not meeting whatever creature had done all of that had made them less afraid for their lives.  
One of the bravest of them got closer to one of the corpses, whilst trying to not breathe through his nose. “These wounds are huge…” He commented in Russian.  
“What?” One of the others asked. The first one continued: “These wounds are huge, there’s no way that little girl could’ve done it herself.”  
“It could’ve been a bear.” The man who was previously about to pee his pants commented.  
“Strange..” The one kneeling replied. “I’m not an expert, but these look… Smaller than bear claws.”  
“So what was it, then?”  
They had all let their guard down.  
They didn’t see the shadowy figure jump out from the bushes and onto one of the men, quickly lowering his head on his neck and biting down, then ripping off a big chunk of meat and a large amount of blood, which poured onto the now dead man’s uniform and onto the figure’s already stained chin and clothes. The other five men all rapidly aimed their guns at the stranger who was swallowing their colleague’s neck, before immediately turning to them and staring at them with completely milky white eyes, sweaty hair and blood red sharp teeth.  
“Oh shit!” They all seemed to yell, before shooting all of their tranquilizing darts at him as best as they could, three or four even hitting him as he dashed towards them, managing to claw at one of the agents’ arm and leaving four deep cuts before falling onto the ground, fast asleep.  
“Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit!” The injured policeman cried, pretty much summing up all of the others’ thoughts. “We have to go back to the village!” One said. “What do we do with him?” Another one pointed at the man who had just attacked them.  
There was a pause, before the agent who had previously examined the bodies spoke.  
“Take him to the asylum.”

**_\-------The Doctor’s TARDIS-------_ **

“So what exactly are we looking for?” The Time Lord questioned, once the time machine had finally landed to its destination, which was November 15th, 5473. “What does the report say?”  
Nora raised her eyebrows, while removing the small hat she’d been wearing up until then and politely placing it on the console. She looked thoughtful, Monroe noticed, and even more beautiful with her hair falling all the way down to the middle of her back. “All we know is that a few bodies were found in the woods nearby a small town in Russia. If I’m not wrong, this town was once Donetsk. I think I’ve read that somewhere on the report.” The woman waved her hand, a small frown on her face. “But I digress. As I was saying, the file was about three victims found in the woods, with injuries similar to what a wild bear could’ve caused.”  
Jim took a step closer to her. “And they were partially eaten.”  
Hearing those words, Monroe felt his insides twist more than before, when he’d been fighting the urge to throw up as the TARDIS flew through time and space. He somehow managed to calm down though, and he spoke: “How do you know it wasn’t an actual bear? Do you have that kind of technology, in the future?”  
While Jim simply glared at him, Nora gave him a look which could have only meant ‘Why did you ask that?’ but the detective didn’t immediately understand, until the Doctor asked another question, his eyebrow arched as usual.  
“I meant to ask as well. How can you know it wasn’t a bear? Most of all, how can you always know where to find him?”  
Jim noticed Nora was on the verge of answering, but he stopped her by chiming in: “We’ve been tracking him down.” He just said, in a monotone voice.  
“You’ve been /what/ now?” The Doctor scowled. “Did you put a bloody GPS on a time machine?”  
Nora tried to save the whole situation. “N-not any GPS, it’s of course technologically advanced, but… Yes, we did.” Her colleague stared at her, then at the Doctor, afraid that he’d have harmed her somehow. Instead, the Time Lord seemed to keep calm -if you could call it calm- and just asked another question.  
“When did you do it?”  
“About a year ago.” Jim answered. “When you fought against the Warlord for the first time. You really made some noise and you did not go unnoticed. so our boss had a small troop approach you down on Earth and hid a tracking device on the Warrior’s TARDIS. We’ve been monitoring you since then.”  
The woman next to him shifted against the console. “We haven’t installed one on yours, though. Would’ve made finding you a bit more easier, but our boss knows how to work with you and it’s not by knowing your position at all times.”  
Grinding his teeth, the alien muttered. “It’s not the way to work with War either.” Then, he sighed, irritated. “Go get changed and we’ll leave.” And without any other word, the U.N.I.T. agents went back to the wardrobe to get their old clothes, leaving the Doctor and Monroe alone in the console room. Higgins, who had barely followed through the whole argument, was just standing near the door, looking more confused than ever. The Doctor glanced at him. “You’ll look like an idiot if you go around like that in this time.” He said, while checking something Monroe couldn’t see. After a brief frown, the detective replied: “You’re dressed the same as me.” To which the Time Lord didn’t answer with words, he instead just glared at him.  
Then, the agents walked back in and the man hadn’t really changed much but Nora was completely different and Monroe noticed it with awe, finding himself adoring how she looked in clothes which were completely different from what women used to wear in his time. It was different, nonetheless, but it wasn’t bad, it was… Stunning.  
“You’re not changing?” She suddenly asked, startling the detective and causing the Doctor to pull a condescending face. Monroe stuttered something that sounded like a no and Nora shrugged, then approaching the door with everyone else.  
“Now,” the Doctor began “It’s not the first time for Nora and Jim so I’m talking to you, Higgins.”  
“What?” The man cocked his head lightly.  
“We’re travelling in time, which means we can’t interfere too much with what is happening around us, got it?”  
“No causing trouble with the timeline.” Jim added.  
“And no flirting with married women of 5473.” Nora cackled.  
“What does that have to do with the timeline?!” Higgins was surprised, but prone to believe her anyways.  
“Nothing.” She said, bursting into laughter. “Just wanted to try what it’s like to boss people around.” Once again, that woman had the detective’s cheeks flushing deep red, and his mind cursing at itself for being so stupid.  
“Is the tea party done?” The Doctor sharply questioned. “Can we go find a psychopath before he kills more?” To which Nora started blushing in shame too. “Sorry, I was just… Trying to lift the mood.” Jim looked at her, gently patted her shoulder, and then nodded to the Doctor.  
“Let’s go.”  
When the Doctor opened the TARDIS door, the first thing that hit him was the cold. Of course, being it mid-November in Russia, he wouldn’t have expected a clear sky and summer heat, but it still was that kind of cold that crept under his skin and clung to his bones, making every movement almost painful. His three companions seemed to be in an even worse situation, but nobody spoke about it-- “Crap, this place is cold.” Monroe commented right as the Doctor was about to talk. The Time Lord rolled his eyes, taking his time to look around more.  
They had landed in what looked like the empty, main square of a small town, surrounded by simple blocks of cement that barely looked like houses, and with some sort of monument in the centre. It was too dark to see what it was, since the only dim lights came from small windows on the walls of the houses nearby. “Should we search for a police station, like we did last time?” Jim asked, and everyone else agreed, mostly because of the chance of getting inside a possibly warm building, which they didn’t find after a long time, due to the town being actually really small and to the station being close to where they had landed. Though it wasn’t really different from all of the other buildings there -which made the whole town look more like a military base than a peaceful village- it did have the words ‘Police department’ written over its front, obviously in russian, but the TARDIS allowed them to see it in English. It kind of startled Monroe at first, seeing that everything was in his native language, but the Doctor quickly explained the translation matrix to him and, even if he was confused still, he at least understood some of it and declared it pure genius. Jim and Nora agreed, while the Time Lord just rolled his eyes, before stepping near the entrance door, causing its sensors to activate and making it slid open. Another thing which amazed Monroe, but he didn’t comment on it.  
The initial relief of getting into somewhere warmer than the outside quickly faded as they realised that the hall was empty. The lights were on, along with the heat, but no one was there, not even someone behind the front desk that occupied the wall on the opposite side of the room: everyone seemed to have vanished into thin air. If there had ever been anyone to begin with. The group exchanged a few looks and questioning expressions, before Monroe spoke.  
“Should we investigate a little?” He asked, but no one could answer in time, due to the voice of a man coming from one of the doors next to the desk.  
“You won’t find anyone around, not tonight.” The stranger said. He was a quite tall, old, skinny man who looked too fragile to even be touched without falling into a million pieces. He had white hair, partially hidden by a dark blue hat, and dark eyes, circled by bags and wrinkles. The overalls he was wearing were of the same colour of his hat and he had a broom in his right hand, his left one pushing a janitor cart filled with all kinds and shapes of bottles, presumably cleaning products. Monroe wondered what he was doing there, if everyone in the village was elsewhere. He meant to ask, but the Doctor was quicker. “Where is everyone, then?”  
The janitor let go of the cart to grab his broom with both hands, lifting his head a bit so that he was facing the Time Lord directly, and finally spoke. “They’re in the woods.” He said.  
Jim furrowed his eyebrows. “Why are they in the woods?”  
And the old man just cackled: “‘Why are they in the woods’ he asks…” He paused to stifle another laugh “For the festival, of course, what else?” Needless to say, all four of them were quite puzzled; they had seen no trace of a festival going on whatsoever, and the woods had been silent throughout all of the time they had spent outside. Jim approached the Doctor and commented about the old janitor being probably crazy, but the other disagreed.  
“Thank you for your help. We will try to find someone out there.” the Time Lord finally stated, before turning around and heading back towards the door.  
“This is the worst idea ever…” Higgins observed, once they’d been out of the janitor’s hearing range.  
None of them had seen that very man grin from cheek to cheek as they had left.

**_\-------_ **

The restraints of the stretcher were way too tight, they hurt him, almost digging through his bloody clothes and into his very flesh.  
The mask on his face barely let him breathe, not even part his lips. The neon lights on the ceiling of the corridor were too bright, his eyes not yet adjusted to them, almost going blind at each one they passed underneath. He didn’t want to be there. He wanted to go back outside, where he was free, free to feed.  
The nurses stopped pushing him: they were standing in front of a large, metal door.  
He moved his head around to scout out the place: the thick door was the only metallic entrance to a cell which walls were completely made out of glass. He knew it couldn’t have been normal glass, but he didn’t really care. He would have gotten out, one way or another. He heard the nurses -three women and two rather burly men- speak to each other briefly, but didn’t understand a word. Then, he felt himself being moved again, this time through the open door and inside the cell. Slowly and carefully he was freed from his restraints, but soon enough put in others, which looked more like handcuffs connected to chains attached to the floor, so cold against his wrists, so cold against his bare feet.  
He tried to fight back, to escape. In his own mayhem, he managed to claw at one of the nurses’ face, causing a deep cut on her perfect, pale skin. Blood soon poured out, along with a screech from the young woman who had now let go of his arm and was instead covering her injured face, where an horizontal, almost perfectly straight wound draped itself from one temple to the other. Her hands were covered in her own blood now, just like her once white uniform and, on the floor next to her, her colleagues could see small, bloody pieces of flesh. The residues of her once beautiful brown eyes.  
“Get her out of here!” One of the nurses -which differenced herself from her probably russian colleagues by having much darker skin and wearing a dark red hijab covering most of her head and chest- shouted to the shocked others, urging the now blind woman out of the door, not without her stumbling and almost falling more than a few times, all while sobbing loudly in pain. The nurse who had just yelled glared at him, to make sure he’d been tied properly. He noticed something off about her look, though: it was probably the fact that her lower lip had been trembling since they had been alone. He grinned from ear to ear, uncovering his redded teeth. Then, without even saying a word, she grabbed something from the side of her belt: a small looking gun, with one long needle protruding from the tip. The nurse aimed it at him and pressed the trigger.

When he woke up -who knows how much time later- he was alone. The glass walls must had been only one way through, because when he tried to look outside from his laying state, he could only see himself, his dirty, bloody, beastly self. He slowly sat up, immediately noticing the sharp pain in his back, probably from having passed out in a weird position, and howled softly, then pushing a grunt out of his throat. He lifted his gaze from the floor to look at himself once again. He thought nothing of the way he looked, with dirt and dried leaves both on his face and in his hair, his beard ,now much longer than before, sprinkled by spots of coagulated blood; and the smell, oh god, the smell. He reeked of wet dog and death, of sweat and vomit. Instead of minding all of those things, since he never did anyways, he approached the mirror wall and pressed his forehead against it, trying to look outside, but without success. That’s when the door opened behind him; in walked one of the big men from before, with some sort of food tray. He couldn’t see what was on it, but he assumed it wasn’t what he needed right now, so he didn’t move, keeping his gaze right ahead, staring into his own eyes until the man, puzzled, set the tray down and finally approached him, carefully, even placing a hand on a gun exactly like the one the nurse had shot him with. Normally, a nurse would have set the food down and just left, especially after seeing what had happened to that woman, but this one was apparently confident enough to face such a beast.  
He liked that.

**_\-------_ **

Once outside, the detective’s hand immediately ran to his pocket, where his packet of cigarettes was, and quickly fished one of them and his lighter out of it. “Is it necessary?”  
The Doctor had noticed his actions and had now commented, his sour expression never leaving his face, apparently. Monroe just stared back at the man, nodded lightly, and lit the cigarette he had between his lips; two steps away, Nora observed with curiosity. Then, without anyone saying anything, the Doctor took the first step towards the dark woods nearby with a huff, and the others followed: Jim right behind him, Nora and Monroe walking side by side, at the same speed. The New York policeman thought about starting a conversation with her multiple times, but each time he almost did, the darkness and the leafless, sharp looking branches reaching out towards them caused him to feel such anxiety that he had to shut up, in case he could have woken something up, some terrible monster which would have come out of the shadows and eaten them all. To top it all off, no one else seemed in the mood to talk: everyone looked so focused on finding this festival the janitor was talking about, so there wasn’t really much time for small talk. Eventually, after minutes and minutes on end of cracking of dry wood and bushes moved by wind, the group started to hear another sound, the one of multiple voices talking all at once. “This must be it.” Nora stated, breaking the silence between them, but soon enough they all realised that what sounded like a joyful festival in the woods at first, quickly shifted to something else, as they noticed that the voices were actually talking all at once, repeating the same words, with small pauses between each sentence. The members of the group all looked at each other as they approached the dim light coming from many lanterns, which were held, as they could see shortly after, by a few people in the crowd, some even planted in the ground. A couple of dozens of villagers stood in front of what looked like a really old -for the 51st century, anyway- building, which stood three or four stories tall and rather large too. What struck the team most was the fact that it didn’t seem to have any path leading to it whatsoever, as it was just… There. The Doctor wondered how they hadn’t seen it before, though, since it was pretty big in fact. “What are they doing?” Jim asked him, stepping next to him to see better. The Time Lord’s answer was quick: “This is the festival.” On the front stairs of the building, a man dressed somewhat like a priest, but with a doctor’s white coat over his black robe, had his hands raised and his eyes closed, as in utter ecstasy.  
Then, the crowd began chanting again, this time clearer than ever before.

“The god beyond eyes sees you.”

The priest nodded.

“The god beyond ears hears you.”

Again.

“The god beyond touch feels you.”

Again, more visibly this time.

“The god beyond scent smells you.”

The priest’s head was jerking uncontrollably now, almost spasmodic.

“The god beyond tongues tastes you.”

He finally lifted his hands above his jolting head, his mouth seemingly wide open.

“The god beyond stomachs shall devour you.”

There was another, brief pause, right after the villagers had stopped chanting. The Doctor, Jim, Nora and Monroe all looked at each other, puzzled, but also terrified. Upon returning to look at the priest, they saw him almost speak again.  
And then the siren went off.

**_\-------_ **

He stood, proud and tall -but most importantly, free- on the corpse of the man who had walked in. The familiar taste of blood lingered in his mouth as he chewed and chewed, staring at the door. It had been easy, ripping the man’s right ear off with just his teeth and then jump to his throat while he barely had the time to scream once, in terror. It had been over quickly, and lucky for him, the man had keys on himself, keys which had helped him unlock his handcuffs. He finally swallowed the last, juicy bit of flesh, before heading towards the door in his now usual, hunched over posture, when one of the other russian nurses walked in, calling a name which must have been the one of the dead man. She froze on the spot, eyes widened and jaw dropped, before she screamed as loud as she could, then rushing outside, getting as far as to press a button on the opposite wall, before his teeth were at her throat as well. She died quickly, choking on her own blood, but the loud sound of an alarm pierced the once silent hallways. So he had to run as well.

**_\-------_ **

As the speakers on the wall of the building spread the siren through the woods nearby, the crowd seemed to go wild: people were screaming, running in every direction, even curling up in a ball on the ground and remaining nearly completely still, just barely rocking themselves back and forth. The doctor-priest, instead, tried to bring back the calm.  
“Brothers! Everything’s alright!” He yelled “There’s no need to be afraid!” But no one listened to him. Something supposedly convinced him that his attempts at calming the crowd were in vain, because he suddenly ran back inside the edifice, slamming the door behind himself.  
“Let’s go.” The Doctor said, his eyes fixated on the man. He then began running towards the entrance in a straight line, but was quickly forced to stop by a man from the crowd, who basically threw himself onto the Time Lord, his teeth going straight for the soft skin on his neck. This caused the Doctor to fall onto his back on the ground, all while trying to push the rabid man away but with little success. It was then that gunshots echoed above the loud alarm and the screams of the crowds, just before those people started howling even louder, now storming toward Jim, who still had his gun aimed at the sky. “Well shit.” The black man said, quickly lowering it to shoot right between the eyes of a woman who had gotten way too close, her mouth already open. “GO!” He then yelled, and both Monroe and Nora began sprinting towards the helpless Doctor and his attacker, whose skull was promptly kicked by the detective, causing him to fall to the side for enough time for the Time Lord to get up. Then, all of them proceeded to their destination, followed by Jim -who was still shooting left and right- and by the rest of the wild villagers. They pushed the door open with all of their strength and, as soon as Jim got to them, they slammed it back close, shutting the people out and hoping it would hold. The Doctor rapidly locked it with his screwdriver, too.  
“What the fuck is going on?!” Monroe shouted.  
“I don’t know!” The Time Lord replied just as harshly, running a hand in his hair.  
“We need to find that doctor and ask him, he’ll know, right?” Nora suggested, her hand already on her gun.  
To that, Jim checked his ammo. “Well, we certainly can’t go back outside.” He commented, right after a loud thump could be heard from outside the door.  
“We have to move. Now!” Commanded Doc, once again starting to run, sprinting down the empty hallway where the siren was still going off, accompanied by a bright, red light flashing on the wall. The group had almost gotten to the end of the corridor, when the sound and the light stopped, leaving the whole building in complete darkness and silence.  
No one said anything, until the Doctor commented: “That man must have turned the alarm off.” And it wasn’t long before the neon lights on the ceiling turned back on, giving the whole place an even creepier -if that’s possible- feeling. The group hadn’t noticed how cold the building was until then: they all tried to warm themselves up somehow, but they still had chills down their spines and they were starting to think it wasn’t just because of the cold.  
“What even is this place?” Monroe asked, gulping lightly.  
“I think I know.” Nora replied, staring at a rectangular screen, showing a map of the floor they were in. Right above, a name: “Saint Peter’s Asylum.” She murmured.  
“That explains a lot.” Her colleague said, turning his head towards the end wall, where the doors to an elevator were. “Do you think we can find our priest that way?” He asked.  
“Hold on a second.” She replied, approaching the screen and tapping it a few times, trying to change the map from floor to floor. After a few moments, she stepped back with a huff. “No use.” But the Doctor grabbed his sonic again. “Let me try.” He pointed it at the map and pressed the button, but as soon as the blue light turned on, the screen itself exploded in a million pieces, which caused the four of them to cover their faces. As everything calmed down, the Time Lord arched an eyebrow and lightly shrugged. “Didn’t expect that.”  
Nora leaned forward to look at the destroyed machine. “Must have been a weak hardware.”  
“We’re in 5000s Russia, of course it was.” The Doctor replied.  
“Guess we gotta go and look for ourselves, uh?” Monroe chimed in, with not much of a response. Instead, they all went for the elevator but, as Nora pressed the button, she found out it was occupied: someone was already coming down. “Maybe it’s the priest.” She said.  
Finally, as they thought, after a few interminable seconds, the elevator stopped on their floor with a soft ding, its doors sliding open to each side shortly after. Inside the rather long lift, there wasn’t the man they had been recently going after; a young looking, amber skinned -maybe arabic- woman stood there instead, her white uniform stained in small, dark red stains, which matched almost perfectly the colour of the hijab on her head. Dark brown eyes stared at the four of them and, before any of them could say anything, the unknown nurse was already aiming a tranquilizer gun at their chests, going from one to the other, her jaw clenched and her eyes slightly narrowed. The Doctor immediately threw his hands up. “We’re not going to hurt you!” He explained, and the others nodded quickly. The woman scowled at the Time Lord from behind her rectangular, black glasses. “You definitely don’t look like the patients, nor I have seen you before. Who are you?” She then spoke, with no russian accent, meaning she probably knew English. “I’m the Doctor.” The trench coat wearing man said, “These are Nora Hallows, Jim Martin and Monroe Higgins. We’re looking for a man.”  
“And some explanations.” Monroe added.  
“Could you-” the Doctor continued “-could you put that away? I’m getting tired of people shooting.” He glared at Jim for a second, then turned back to her. The nurse, lowering her gun a little, before eventually putting it back into its place on her belt, raised one eyebrow, puzzled. “Farha Haik. How did you come here? How did you find this place?” She asked, suspicious.  
“We’re searching for a murderer, he’s on the run. And we know he’s here.” Martin stated.  
The woman shook her head. “That doesn’t answer my question.”  
“Why are you asking in the first place?” Monroe frowned “Are we not supposed to be here?”  
“Not at all. This is a hidden research facility, nobody should know about its existence.”  
“The asylum?”  
“The whole city. And about thirty square miles all around it.”  
“Research facility?” the Doctor asked, glancing at the opposite side of the hallway, where things seemed to have calmed down. Farha, instead of answering, scowled again. “I’m not authorized to say anything. Plus, you haven’t even told me why you’re here.” Everyone looked at each other for a second, then the Time Lord fished out his psychic paper once again, holding it in front of the nurse. “We’re from U.N.I.T.” He explained “We were sent to track down a psychopatic killer who’s killed more than fifty people. The last report said he was here, but I guess now we’ll have to investigate this little circus act you’ve got here.”  
At those words, the woman’s facade seemed to fall completely, but she quickly regained her posture, swallowing a slight lump in her throat. “I-I’ll have you know that this research operation is completely legal, and--”  
“How about you tell us what is it that you’re researching, and we’ll decide.” Jim said coldly.  
She sighed. “It’s not safe here. Let’s go upstairs, to the first ward. I’ll explain while we get there.” And so, with little trust toward this complete stranger, they all got on the elevator, where Farha pressed the fourth floor button, causing the doors to close and the lift to begin going up.  
“This operation is called C.A.T.E. 06. Doctor Peterson and a few of us have been sent here to conduct experiments on two thousand patients, all mentally ill.” She explained.  
“C.A.T.E.?” Nora questioned, finally speaking after being silent for a long time.  
“Doctor Peterson?!” Monroe nearly interrupted her. He apologised with a look, but that name had struck him quite hard. He didn’t ask anything else though, as Jim glared at him.  
The nurse finally nodded. “Cure All That Exists. It’s a medical procedure in which we inject a special serum of our creation in the subjects to treat their illnesses. Of course, the worse ones need larges doses.”  
“And does it work?” Said the U.N.I.T. female agent.  
“To a certain extent. You’ve seen it in action, I believe.”  
“Have we?” It was the Doctor the one to ask, now.  
“The villagers. They were part of the two thousand subjects. They are the ones on which the serum worked, but not fully. They were… They are unstable. They need some sort of determination to keep their sanity together.”  
“What sort of determination?”  
“A strong belief.”  
The Doctor’s mind was immediately flooded by memories of the so-called festival outside of the asylum. “Like a religion.” And Farha nodded. “Exactly. The urge of humanity to believe in something greater. Subjects without religion either fall into a great depression or go back to their original state. So doctor Peterson has created this fake god, so that they would believe in something, but…”  
Monroe cocked his head to a side. “But?”  
“I think he’s started believing in it too.”  
Right in that moment, the doors slid open, revealing another large hallway, but this one had a few smaller ones branching out to the sides, probably leading to the patients’ rooms. The same creepy neon lights illuminated it but, instead of having blank, yellowish paint on its walls as the ground floor, this one had various screens, each one reciting a line from the chant they had heard before. “Why did the siren go off, before?” Jim asked, glancing around rapidly. The woman gulped lightly. “A nurse was attacked by one of the patients, so someone must have sounded the alarm to call doctor Peterson.”  
“A patient attacked a nurse?” The Doctor asked, clenching his jaw, and Farha nodded. “Was it a patient you got here recently?”  
“Yes, the security agents brought him here last night. One of them even got attacked by him.”  
The four time travellers looked at each other, then Nora asked: “Where is he?”  
“We… Put him in solitary confinement, he was way too dangerous to be with the others. He’s waiting for the treatment, first thing in the morning.”  
“Take us to him.” The Doctor commanded. Nurse Haik gave them a worried look, but then began walking towards the opposite end of the hallways, where a big sign said the words ‘Wing B’; from there, she lead them through another big corridor, on the sides of which were dozens of doors, probably to the patients’ rooms. One thing the Time Lord noticed was that everything was extremely quiet. Way too quiet, for an insane asylum. Yet, he didn’t comment on it, because he didn’t care; he would have spoken with Peterson about his work later. First, he had to find the Warrior. Soon enough, they were all standing in front of another door similar to the first one they’d gone through, only this time the sign said ‘Solitary Confinement’. Pretty straight-forward. Farha opened the door with her key card but, as soon as she saw what was inside, her jaw dropped and her body froze. Jim stepped forward. “Is something wrong?” And then he saw too.  
“Oh shit.” He murmured, immediately turned to the Doctor and also glancing at the others. “We need to find him. Now!”  
“What do you mean?” Monroe gasped “Did he--”  
“Natasha!” Farha yelled, storming into the room and rushing to her colleague’s dead body. She was visibly distraught as she uselessly searched for her pulse. Everybody followed her with their gaze, but no one stepped inside. The Time Lord looked at the inside of the glass cage, where another corpse laid, next to an untouched tray of food. He gulped, feeling his heartbeats getting faster with anxiety. “Doctor?” Nora called him. He just answered: “Jim’s right. Let’s go.”

It took Farha a while to gather herself up and leave the corpses be, then taking a deep breath and convincing herself that she would have found that man-- no, that beast, and that she would have delivered him to justice. If those four agents were telling the truth, then she wouldn’t have had any further problems, or at least she hoped. “If we want to stop him before he gets out,” she stated, fixing her glasses on her nose “We have to get to doctor Peterson’s office. And we have to do it fast. There’s a switch that will lock all the exits.”  
“Perfect.” Doc replied quickly. “C’mon.”  
And so they went back through the door, right as another sound echoed in the hallway: dozens of doors opening. And Farha knew what that meant. “Back inside!” She said in a hushed tone. Though knowing they had to be fast, the many patients slowly pouring out of their rooms and into the long room outside weren’t going to let them through that easily. She saw Jim look out of the door and immediately grabbing his gun but, before she could say anything, the Doctor spoke: “Don’t you dare.” He said, glaring at him like he’d done before. The nurse glanced at the two of them. “There are a few tranquilizing guns up there.” And she pointed at a glass case on the opposite wall. There was no way of getting to it without walking next to the open door and risking to be seen. “I’ll do it.” Nora suddenly said. Jim wanted to argue, but she had already gotten up. His hand went back to his gun; if something went wrong, he knew what to do. Farha handed her keycard to the woman, saying she would have needed it, and Nora sneakily walked to the other side of the room and held the card up to the side of the case, causing it to slide open, revealing four rifles similar to shotguns, just slightly smaller. She quickly grabbed them and slid them onto the floor, towards Jim and the others. Monroe even handed one to the Doctor, who just stared at him with an arched eyebrow. “Alright, then.” He whispered, giving the gun to Farha instead. Once -almost- each one of them was armed, Jim gave the sign and they stepped into the hallway, Doc standing behind them. This caused most of the patients to rapidly turning towards them, right before growling loudly and dashing at them.  
“Open up a breach!” Jim yelled, shooting the first dart which went right in a bald man’s chest. “Don’t waste too many bullets!”  
Farha’s aim wasn’t as good, but she did get a few arms and legs here and there, and she knew the tranquilizer would have worked anyways. It wasn’t long before they were advancing, yet their plan wasn’t really working, as there were way too many rabid patients attacking them and, before they had arrived to the opposite door, they had to knock them all out somehow. Once they were outside, the Doctor used his sonic to lock the door behind them. “Who knows how long it’ll last.” He said, to which Farha responded: “Two hours.”  
“Well, she knows.” Monroe commented.  
“How many darts do y’all have?” Jim asked. They all quickly checked and found out that the best shooter was in fact Nora, with four darts left, followed by Jim, with two, and then Monroe and Farha, with one. They needed to be more careful.  
“Where’s Peterson’s office?” Nora asked.  
“Top floor.”  
“Of-fucking-course.” Said Monroe, sighing.  
“Let’s just go.” The U.N.I.T. agent replied.  
Back on the elevator, they had to wait a while. Nora glanced at the Doctor and saw him fidgeting with the back of his trench coat. She could tell he was nervous, everyone was. Even Farha, who had been working at the asylum for quite some time, still looked pretty anxious in such a situation, which could have been expected, since it was probably the first time she had to face the death of her colleagues. And yet, she wasn’t having any sort of mental breakdown. Nora admired her strength. She would have said something but the moment just didn’t seem right. Then, the elevator sounded another small ding and the doors opened once again. Luckily, the whole floor looked empty: maybe the rest of the medical staff was taking care of the patients elsewhere, plus it didn’t look like a place the patients were allowed in. “This way.” Farha said, leading them through another few hallways, looking similar to the one they had seen downstairs, until they reached a door with a plate right next to it. “Doctor A. Peterson.” Monroe read. They couldn’t really hear anything coming from inside, but the Time Lord quickly opened the door using his screwdriver. The room inside was dimly lit and rather small and empty, except for a couple of shelves filled with books and paper sheets, probably concerning Peterson’s experiments. Speaking of the man, he stood in front of his desk, his back to the door, his head sunken down between his shoulders. “Doctor?” Farha called him, puzzled.  
“I met him.” He replied, the faintest sound of a stifled laughter in his words.  
“Who?” The nurse asked, getting more and more worried.  
“God.” And when he finally turned around, he showed all of them the huge bite on his stomach, from which a lot of blood must had poured out, completely soaking the front of his clothes. “How is he still alive?” Jim said. “I don’t know.”  
Peterson laughed loudly. “You’ll meet him too… You want to… He’s in the chapel…” He reached in the pocket of his lab coat with the hand that wasn’t holding his wound and fished out a small device. “His children will take you to him.”  
“He’s gonna call every patient!” Screamed Farha, but Monroe was one step ahead of her. Thinking he’d have pulled out a weapon, he had dashed towards him and hit him right on the temple with the butt of his gun, knocking him unconscious on the ground. Looking down at him and slightly panting, the detective stated: “This is the part where I say something witty.” He then looked at Nora, who had a small smile on her lips, and added: “I’m not witty.”  
Jim rolled his eyes, then turned to Farha. “Where’s the chapel?”  
“This way!” And with that, she ran back outside, followed by the others. More empty hallways later, there they were: another screen next to the door said the words of the chant over and over and, upon closer inspection, both the screen and the door were stained in blood. He had been there. The door opened, showing a large, oval room divided in three aisles by two lines of benches, each one of which was occupied by a large number of patients, who all had their hands up and their eyes on the opposite end where, behind a small wooden altar, stood the man the Doctor had been chasing until then. The Warrior also had his hands up, a large, red grin on his face. He lowered his head when he noticed the door opening and, as soon as he saw the five people standing there, he changed his grin into a wolfish grimace, immediately running for one of the two side doors nearby. With their ‘god’ running away, all of the patients turned their head around to see who had disturbed their prayers. Needless to say they rapidly charged at them. Jim knew the darts wouldn’t have been enough. “SHOOT!” He yelled, grabbing his real gun and beginning to shoot everything that came his way. Monroe and Nora quickly did the same, while Farha turned to the Doctor.  
“Go after him, he can’t go anywhere from there!”  
The Time Lord looked at her, confused by the sounds of the gunshots.  
“GO!”  
And before he knew it, he was rushing down the left aisle -and not in the way he’d hoped for- while Jim, Nora and Monroe covered him. Luckily, no one attacked him and he was soon on the other side of the door where the Warrior had gone through. He found out it let to a small backroom, just as empty as the other rooms, except for the man standing in front of the wall ahead of him. The Warrior turned around and presented himself to the Doctor in all of his bloody, glorious, dirty self. The smell was enough to make the other Time Lord want to puke but he didn’t care. He stepped forward and, for the first time in months, he head War speak.  
“It hurts me more than I thought it would.” He said. “Seeing you.”  
The Doctor was panting still, from the run. “You need to come with me. Now.”  
The other cackled: “And go where? Somewhere I will be judged for my crimes against the universe?”  
“Somewhere we can cure you.”  
Maybe there’s nothing to cure in me, Doctor, have you thought about that? This is who I am. This is who I’ve always been: a merciless killer you despise.”  
“That’s not true.” Doc could feel his lower lip tremble.  
“You hate whoever takes an innocent life. And it’s what I’ve been doing ever since you met me.” War smiled. Then, he reached for the back of his belt and grabbed something the Doctor hadn’t seen upon arriving: a gun. “But if you want, there’s another solution. Let us end this, once and for all.”  
Doc blinked. “I won’t kill you.” He stuttered slightly.  
“I won’t let you change me. I can’t be changed.” Holding the gun by its barrel, he approached the other man, until the Doctor’s hand was on the weapon. Then, he continued: “My soul is dark and dirty, I’m not innocent. Kill me. ” War’s bloody hand covered the other’s, clutching it until his index finger was ready on the trigger.  
“But do it… With a kiss.”  
The Doctor blinked slowly once again. In fact, everything seemed to slow down. With his eyes fixated on the Warrior’s, he was in front of a choice: letting him go and allowing him to kill more, or killing him. For good. He didn’t know if regenerating would have caused him to get back to normal, but the words ‘I can’t be changed’ still echoed through his mind. Everything he could think of was what War had said to him a few moments earlier, and he couldn’t focus on something else, like a way to bend his words, to find a loophole, a way to heal him. But nothing. It was one of those rare times in which his brain just shut off, leaving him with no other option but to oblige. Was he ready to live a life without the Warrior? No, he wasn’t. But he had to.  
“With a kiss.” He whispered, and his lips crashed against the cannibal psycho’s, tasting the blood and the dirt and the puke and the sweat and trying to enjoy every last second, him mind desperately trying to accept that this was it, this was how it ended. No loving embrace, just the dried body fluids and the cold gun in his hand. And finally, he did it.  
Or at least he thought he did, but as soon as his finger started clenching onto the trigger, he was stopped by the sound of the beginning of a laugh. It was War’s.  
Then, the loud sound of something hitting his head.  
Something else being taken away from his hands.  
Someone holding him up.  
A gunshot.  
Cold.  
Black.

**_((To be continued.))_ **


	5. 7x04 - Cold Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim and the others rush the injured Doctor out of the Asylum. Will they make it to a safe place?  
> Meanwhile, somewhere else, in another time, a threat is going larger and larger...

Jim Martin was tired. The blood of dozens of inmates of the Asylum stained his clothes and face, in spots where he couldn’t have cleaned himself, without a proper mirror. The last hour or so replayed constantly in his head, over and over, like a broken record. He saw himself -well, his hand- wielding his trusty gun as he made his way down the pews of the chapel in the Asylum, shooting down one patient after the other, as Monroe and Nora did the same at his sides, while Farha just kind of… Followed them, her tranquilizer rifle being out of ammo since a couple of minutes after they had started defending themselves. They had to make it to the opposite side, they had to help the Doctor before it was too late. With Monroe now covering their back and Nora in between them taking care of the sides, they were almost there; and then, suddenly, a muffled gunshot. A quick glance and they knew it wasn’t coming from none of their guns. Then, the door in which the two Time Lords had both gone through slammed open, the Warrior standing right there for a brief moment, before grinning and charging at them along with his ‘acolytes’. Jim aimed his gun. The Doctor wasn’t right behind the man, and he most certainly didn’t have a gun before going after him, so he had to assume the worst. He pulled the trigger, but the other man was too fast: with a rapid dash slightly to the right he had dodged it and had practically jumped to a couple of meters away from the agent. Jim thought it was done. He thought  _ he _ was done. He saw the Warrior’s grin open, shifting into a jaw ready to bite his entire frontal lobe off. But, to his luck, that wasn’t the case. Jim watched as the Time Lord jumped right in front of him, this time vertically, whirling above all of their heads to then land behind them. However, as his feet touched the ground, his grin had shifted into a pained expression, as he held his shoulder tightly, blood flowing out of an injury way too close to his jugular vein that he’d hoped for. The Doctor’s companions all turned to Nora, who had her still warm gun pointed at his head, right in the middle of his eyes. She wasn’t going to miss, this time around. Her finger pressed onto the trigger.

_ Click. _

She had just used her last bullet. The Warrior sneered again. Monroe and Jim were too slow to try and shoot him, as he was already out of the chapel, for some reason followed by the remaining inmates, who probably wanted to keep worshipping him. 

Silence fell over the large room for a couple of seconds. Higgins had a foot on the way to follow the escaping man, but Nora and Farha were already heading towards where the Doctor was, so the two men followed them, only to find the U.N.I.T. agent leaning against a wall, heavily breathing and the nurse knelt over the unconscious Time Lord. Seeing the blood pooling around him, Jim knew they had to get help, and quickly. They all seemed to agree to go back to the TARDIS, so Monroe and Farha volunteered to carry the Doctor, while Jim handed Nora a full cartridge for her gun, so they both could have opened up the way. After that it was just a matter of getting to the elevator, wait until they reached the ground floor, make their way to the exit and from there into the woods outside, to get back to the village and the TARDIS.

And they had almost no problems at all, except for the clearing right outside of the asylum: it was flooded with patients, still roaming around in search of their master, or maybe their prophet, or maybe even them, the preys. Farha watched in horror as she saw some of them crouched over the bodies of the ones who had fallen before, eating their dirty flesh with empty eyes and furious expressions. No one really talked as they chipped down more and more people, the nurse noticing how she knew every single one of them, each familiar face falling dead on the ground the closer they got to the thicket of dark brown wood, disappearing into the dark and hoping not to be followed, which they quickly realised to be a far to high hope for such a situation. So they ran as fast as they could, this time Jim and Nora standing behind the two who were carrying the Doctor. It wasn’t long until they had made it back to the village, since they basically only had to run in a straight line, but a quick look behind their backs confirmed that they were still being chased.  _ “GO!”  _ Jim shouted, and everyone else obliged. There it was, standing as proud and promising as ever, the blue police box, in the middle of the city centre. Farha’s eyes widened. “How are we going to fit in there?!” She screamed. “Just get inside!” Monroe replied, practically kicking the wooden door open, revealing once again the physics-defying room in the time machine. Of course the woman was rather surprised, but she knew she didn’t have much of a choice, so Higgins and her stormed in, laid the wounded Doctor on the ground, and turned to Nora and Jim, who had just gotten inside and locked the door behind themselves. 

“Who…” Farha panted, her eyes darting around, but still focusing mostly on the other three people in there with her. “Who are you people?!” She gulped and Nora approached her and knelt next to her. “We’ll explain it later. Right now, we need your help.” The agent said rather calmly, staring right in her brown eyes. “You’re a nurse, right?” Farha nodded. “Yes, but without medical equipment, I can’t do anything!”

Jim walked up to them. “We need to take this thing to the U.N.I.T. headquarters. Get him some help.” He gestured to the Doctor with a nod. “Any idea on how to do that?” Monroe asked and Nora got back up. “We might as well try.” 

“That’s the worst idea you’ve ever had.” Her colleague stated.

“We can’t let him die, Jim, and you know that. Plus, it’s not like we can go outside and ask them for help!” She replied while, on the other side of the door, fists and feet hit the wood hard, trying to knock it down in vain. Monroe shot up at the noises, then turning to Nora. “Jim’s right, you can’t just put your hands in there and hope for the best!” He said quickly, anxiously. “Do you even know what technology this is?” 

The woman forced herself to pull out a confident smile, then placed a hand on Higgins’ cheek, gently. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.” And in that moment, Monroe had the strongest urge to lean forward and just kiss her, but he decided against it at the last second; it wasn’t the right moment. A flutter of her eyelids later, Nora was already busying herself with the complex console commands. Jim just watched, clenching his jaw nervously. “Pulse?” The agent asked Farha; she quickly checked. Her eyes shot wide open. “It’s weak, but it’s there, and…” Monroe looked at her and nodded. “Yeah, it’s new for me too.” The nurse then proceeded to press her hands onto the man’s injury, hoping with all of her heart that they were going to tell her everything later. 

Meanwhile, Nora was dashing from one side of the console to the other, more randomly trying every button and lever rather than actually knowing what she was doing; and yet, in all of that chaos, she must have had done something right, because they all heard the loud sound they’d all heard before, except for Farha, obviously. “Did you do it?” Monroe’s smile was wide, when the sound finally stopped.

“I… Guess?” Nora chuckled. “I did it!” She exclaimed, jumping in the man’s arms and pulling him close, which made the detective blush greatly and the other agent glare at him. Once again. Then, right when they were about to exit the TARDIS and see where they had landed, Jim opened the door and the first thing he found to greet him was… The barrel of a gun. The barrel of a U.N.I.T.’s agent gun. 

He convinced himself that keeping his cool would have been better. “We have a wounded Time Lord on board. We need help.” 

“Jim Martin, Nora Hallow,” the first agent in line said “Miss Stewart wants to see you.”

The next few minutes were confusing for all of them, as the Doctor was brought out of the TARDIS by a medical team and they were lead somewhere else by armed agents. Monroe couldn’t help but stare at everything around him in awe, though not being able to enjoy it fully because of the great anxiety that was growing inside of him. “Where are we going?” He tried asking, but no one answered, not even Nora. Farha gave him a confused look, as she had no idea of where they were either. The agents guided them across a few brightly lit corridors, where they occasionally encountered a few of what Higgins could only assume were scientists. 

Finally, the four agents let them walk inside of some sort of office room, where a blonde, middle aged woman sat behind a desk. It was pretty hot in there, so Monroe was about to take off his coat, but a quick reaction from one of the guards convinced him he was better off the way he was. He was already sweating. The woman behind the desk looked up at them, mainly focusing on Jim and Nora. “Now what exactly are you doing here?” She asked, in a British accent similar to Nora’s.

The two agents looked at each other briefly. “The Doctor, he was injured. He needs medical treatment.” Hallow explained, fidgeting with her hands. 

“How?” Kate Stewart asked, her brown eyes fixated on Nora’s.

“He was shot.” Jim answered. “By the Warrior.”

“You found him?”

“He escaped.”

“Where?”

“Donetsk, Russia. Year 5743.”

“And why is your GPS location still in southern England, 2016?” 

Nora gulped. “We…” She started “We left our badges there.” 

Kate sighed. “It was his idea, wasn’t it.” Jim nodded. “He didn’t want you to track us down. He said it was the only way he’d help us.” 

“Very well. Our doctors are taking care of him. Hopefully it’s nothing too far from a normal human medical procedure.” She then paused, looked at Monroe and Farha, and then arched an eyebrow. “And who are they?” 

“Monroe Higgins.” The detective introduced himself, taking his hat off. The woman seemed to be inspecting him from head to toe, then she sighed again. “He’s not exactly from around here, is he?”

Nora pressed her lips together and looked up at the ceiling, while Jim answered the question: “He’s from New York. 1940s.” Farha’s eyes widened, but she said nothing.

“Another brilliant idea coming from the Doctor?”

“Actually, it wasn’t, ma’am.” Monroe said “Nora and Jim thought I should’ve joined them, since I’d seen way too much for my time, I think.” To that, Nora closed her eyes, clenching her jaw, embarrassed. Kate Stewart moved her gaze to the amber skinned woman. “And you are?” 

“Farha Haik.” She replied, giving her a small nod. “The Doctor and the others saved my life, taking me with them. I would’ve died, if they hadn’t.” And it was pretty true, leaving her at the asylum would have probably meant leaving her to certain death by mauling at the hands -and jaws- of the patients. 

“So I get these two people are helping you?” 

Jim nodded.

“Very well. If that’s what it takes, then do it. Do try to limit the casualties.” Monroe’s reaction to that statement was a loud gulp. He didn’t even want to think about the possibility of one of them dying, even though the Doctor had just literally risked it, but he was a special case. To make it quick, he didn’t want to think about Nora dying. He blushed at that thought, hoping she wouldn’t see him, and cleared his throat.

“O’Neal,” Kate called one of the guards “Take them to the infirmary.” 

 

And so, after a few more minutes of walking, they had been told to sit and wait outside of some sort of operating room. There were a few benches, on the opposite walls, facing each other. Jim and Nora were sitting on one, Monroe and Farha on the other. Jim had been recalling the past few hours for a while now, staring off into the distance. They were all tired, and Nora couldn’t even remember how long it had been since she had last slept; time travelling was confusing.

Monroe glanced around a bit, then decided to make conversation with his bench-mate. “So…” He began, turning to Farha. He didn’t really know what to talk about, could he tell her she was a really good shot, back there, while they were slaughtering the patients she had probably grown to love and care about? No, not really. He went for something he thought was more… Delicate.

“They let you wear that, at the Asylum?” 

It wasn’t more delicate.

Farha glared at him. “They were respectful of my religion, which you should be too.”

Monroe shut up from then on. 

That whole fuss brought Jim back from his train of repetitive thoughts, causing him to look up from the floor and notice Higgins’ flushed face. He couldn’t really blame him for this, though, as he knew all too well the man came from the past, while Farha came from the future. Maybe they wouldn’t ever have gotten on well. Instead of speaking of the subject -since Farha looked pretty done with talking- he turned to Nora. “You almost got him.” He said, the faintest smile on his lips.

The woman sighed. “Yeah, almost.” Her arms were folded on her chest, and she was just staring ahead. Jim knew he had misspoken: “I meant you were really good. Your aim was really good, I didn’t--” 

“Expect it?” Nora cut him off, sounding more tired than angry. 

“I didn’t know. I had never seen you acting so calm in such a situation.” 

“I know.” She took a deep breath, turning to face him. “I’m sorry for snapping at you, I just… Wish I could’ve done more.” 

“We all do.” Jim’s hand instinctively went to rest itself onto his colleague’s shoulder. “The Doctor got hurt, but it surely wasn’t your fault.” 

While gently biting on her lower lip, Nora glanced down at Jim’s hand. “We let him go after the Warrior alone. We should’ve never done that, we knew he was dangerous…” Martin clenched his jaw lightly. “I know. This whole thing is slowing us down, isn’t it?” 

“It is.”

Meanwhile, Monroe had listened to their whole conversation. He hadn’t really wanted to at first, but then it had quickly dawned on him that, while sitting there, in that hallway, he didn’t have much to do. So he had heard everything and had decided to try and lift the mood. “Hey, Jim?” He said “What about I go and get some food? I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.” 

The U.N.I.T. agent was way too tired to start some sort of argument, so he agreed.

“I’ll come with you.” Nora suggested. “I don’t want you to get startled by… Modern food.” Monroe frowned at her words, but didn’t complain, so they both got up from their seats. “You want anything?” She asked the other two, but they booth shook their heads. As they were leaving and heading towards where Nora had said the cafeteria was, Monroe felt slightly downhearted. His plan to make the group feel better hadn’t really worked, but at least he got to spend some time alone with Nora, and that was good enough to cheer him up. 

Jim watched them walk away and then moved, getting up to go and sit next to Farha. “Excuse him.” He said “I’m sure he didn’t mean to be disrespectful.” The woman looked at him from behind her rectangular, slightly dirty glasses. “Who are you people?” There was a pause, right before Jim answered, where he actually reflected on whether he should have told her everything, but then he realised there was no other option; she was in too deep to just let her go back to her time. And so he began explaining.

 

**_\-------_ **

 

_ “Damn it!” _ The man’s voice echoed on the walls of the ship bridge, along with the sound of his fist slamming on the command console. Luckily, he hadn’t hit any important button. Behind him, one of his subordinates stood, his hands intertwined behind his back, suddenly finding it hard to breathe normally. 

“Sir,” he said, trying to sound as confident as he could “The experiment might still be successful, maybe it just needs a little more time.” 

“A little more time?” The Warlord turned around, his dark cape rustling on the ground. He stared at the young man with his deep brown eyes, not even trying to hide the boiling rage behind them. “Do you  _ think _ we have a little more time? Do you think we can postpone this even further?”

“Sir, with all due respect…”

“ _ I don’t give a shit about your respect!”  _ The Time Lord’s shout filled the large room and this time, a few of the people sitting at the many terminals raised their heads, listening. “He was supposed to be here with me by now, at my side. He is the focal point of all of our work! We  _ need _ him to proceed!” It seemed like the man had somehow regained his calm, now, and he turned back to the wide window he had been staring out of until that moment. With one hand, he caressed the round, golden medallion hanging from his neck above his dark red robe, following the shape of the hourglass-like carving in its center: the symbol of Gallifrey’s Time Lords. “Now,” he finally said, calmly “Get a troop ready. You’re going wherever and whenever he went and you’re taking him here, whether he likes it or not.”

“Yes, sir.”

And with that and a small bow, the subordinate was leaving the bridge, getting a few worried looks -along with a few judgimental ones- on the way out. He made his way through most of the spaceship, alone, through the living areas and the big cafeteria, where he spotted many of the people who worked on that ship. All kinds of species sat and stood in various enviroments, talking to each other about any subject. Even Cybermen and Daleks seemed to get along, in there, giving the whole situation a certain oniric feel. It just didn’t look real, but it was. Of course it was, because the Warlord’s powers were limitless, the man thought; he truly was the one destined to lead the universe into a new age. He still remembered the day he had been recruited like it was yesterday: “Kat Marell!” One burly Judoon had called, in front of a long line of men and women which had gathered in the main street of his small village in his home planet. At first, he hadn’t wanted to leave his family and friends, but after a quick look from the Warlord, he was convinced. Kat had readily packed his bags, shaved the moustache his fiancée loved so much, kissed his loved ones goodbye and left. It had taken him a bit of time to become one of the highest councelor of his leader, but now that he was, he didn’t want anything else. Even though the Time Lord often yelled at his subordinates -and this had become way more common, now that the Warrior was on the run again- there was something about the man that made him impossible to hate. If you’d have asked Kat if he’d ever thought about diserting, he would have responded with a glare, and he would have asked you if you were crazy. Kat Marell was one of the most faithful and loyal servant of the Warlord. But even if he had been bent by his powers, forced to do whatever he pleased and convinced to believe in his foolish cause, he was still a humble farmer from a little, far away planet. 

So how could he have had the slightest bit of battle reflexes? Short answer: he didn’t; so he didn’t hear the door of a nearby room open right before he’d passed through, he didn’t see the glimmer of a blade in the dark. All he felt was the hand on his mouth and the cold metal slicing his throat open, and that was it. 

Minutes later, another man came out of the same room Kat had been dragged in, the dark red uniform luckily not showing the almost same coloured blood which had stained it earlier. Adjusting the hat onto his slicked back curly hair and rapidly licking a drop of dark, almost dried liquid from his thumb, before scratching his freshly trimmed beard, the Warrior walked through the hallway fast, headed the way the man he’d just killed had come from. Nobody even tried to stop him as he made his way to the elevator leading to the bridge where he knew his uncle would be. 

When he stepped into the large room, no one seemed to notice him at first, but when one head lifted up from a keyboard and saw him, everybody else could hear a gasp and the sound of a gun being picked up. Every single person in there turned to him, many barrels of loaded, small black guns pointed at him. The Warrior had his dagger ready.

“You know, if you were going to hand yourself over willingly, there was no reason for the man you took that uniform from to die.” Stated the Warlord, finally facing him. War noticed how he hadn’t changed one bit from the last time he’d seen him, while being sure there were many changes in his own appearance. 

“Who said I’m handing myself over?” War’s low, raspy yet charming voice replied, accompanied by the smirk he enjoyed doing so much lately. 

A chuckle came from the Warlord’s direction, and he gestured towards the armed soldiers in the room with his hands. “Are you really stupid enough to try this?” 

“Not stupid.” The Warrior corrected him. “Certain.” And with that, the hand that was holding the dagger moved quickly, throwing it precisely in the closest soldier’s throat; immediately after, his whole body followed, sliding in the same direction and rapidly taking possession of the woman’s gun, then dashing upwards, above the cover the desk offered, and beginning to shoot anyone who wasn’t fast enough. Laser beams flew across the room in any direction, but the Warlord stood immobile. 

Soon enough, the Warrior’s gun was out of charge, but there were only a few people left to be taken care of, so he just gripped his blade again, sliding it out of the dead woman, and finally, with a powerful leap up in the air, he flung it forward again, using his perfect aim to hit the perfect place: the exact end of one of the guns’ barrel. The blade sliced it open, getting stuck in the way of the lazer bullet before the man could pull the trigger, and when he finally did, the energy backfired, exploding right in all of the remaining soldiers’ faces. Their burnt, deformed bodies dropped onto the ground soon after War’s feet had touched the ground; he wasn’t even sweating. 

Silence fell on the room again until, as the Warrior stood back up straight and turned to his uncle, the man was clapping slowly. “Are you happy now?” He asked, mildly irritated rathere than actually angry. 

The younger Time Lord cackled. “Not yet.” He leaped towards the other, unarmed but ready to hit; he could see himself finally feasting on his flesh, chewing his vocal chords, using a bone to pick his own teeth clean…

“Stop.” The Warlord had barely lifted a hand, and the currently most destructive force in the whole galaxy had stopped in its tracks completely right before him. But it was only for a moment. War’s right leg twitched a couple times, before slowly starting to move again. He had been slowed down, but not interrupted. 

“No.” He murmured, extending his hands towards the other. “Not this time.” He was at about two feet from him, and his uncle hadn’t moved yet. Either he was in utter shock because of the malfunction of his powers, or he had some kind of plan. 

“WAIT!” It was a stranger’s voice that who had yelled from somewhere behind him. A female voice, far and distant in War’s memories, yet so… Familiar. He turned his head around, his face still strained into his wolfish grimace. “Deborah.” 

His adopted sister had her gun held ahead of her, aimed at him, her long, dark, wavy hair sticking out of the hat of a dark red uniform, the same as his. She must have had the same idea. “Do you work for him?” Asked the Warrior. “Because if you do… You won’t be able to stop me like he did.” A subtle nod towards their uncle.

She shook her head. “Not anymore. But you don’t have to do this, brother.” 

“Wrong.” 

He jumped again. He landed behind his uncle, too quick to be stopped. Covering the man’s mouth to avoid any other order, he also pushed his head sideways, uncovering his neck. Then, he dug his teeth in and just fed. Ripping his skin apart limb from limb, staining himself with the liquid he so much loved the taste of, his eyes shooting up and almost back into their orbits in pleasure. 

Deborah could only watch, though knowing it wouldn’t have been long before… 

The Warrior flinched when the weight of the dead body in his arms simply disappeared, leaving him dumbstruck, staring at his empty hands. A tinkling sound adverted him of the small, black, obsydian-like stone which had fallen onto the floor. He realised.

“Another  _ TRICK?! _ ” He roared, after grabbing the stone in his fist. His sister’s gun was still on him and she was almost convinced to use it. “What happened, brother?” Her voice asked, shakingly. 

Licking his lips, he looked up at her. There was no reason for her to die.  _ Yet. _ And he knew she wouldn’t have fired. She was too weak. 

A grin came back to uncover his red teeth. “I’m finally alive.” Then, he knew what to do: he had seen the button on the console before, he just needed to press it. And he did, far too quickly for Deborah to react. He disappeared in a flash of light before her, teleporting to where he had left his TARDIS upon his arrival on the ship. 

The room was silent again. Deborah lowered her gun, stifling a small sob. Looking at her wrist, where her vortex manipulator was, she took an important decision. She inserted the coordinates and pressed the final button.

 

**\-------**

 

When Nora and Monroe got back, carrying a couple of small, presumably filled with food paper bags in their hands, Jim had both his back and head leaning against the wall behind him, while Farha was the exact opposite, leaning forward with her head in her hands, one of which was holding her glasses. Nora chuckled as they approached the other two. “You should’ve seen his face. He was confused by chicken nuggets.”

Monroe snickered as well, the faintest flush on his cheeks. “Not confused, pleasantly surprised.” He then admitted, opening his bag and pulling a square carton box, probably containing the subject of their conversation. “I mean, I look at them and I just think…” He continued once he opened the box as well “...How?” Nora burst out laughing. Then, seeing Jim’s tired face, she straightened herself up.

“How is he?” She asked. The other agent shrugged. “We don’t know. I’ve just spent the past twenty minutes getting her up to date.” The man nodded towards Farha. “She wasn’t as ‘pleasantly surprised’ as him.” That made Monroe actually feel kind of bad for a bit. Meanwhile, Nora kneeled next to the other woman. “God, I’m sorry. Monroe got the easy explanation.” 

“It’s okay.” Replied Farha, lifting her head. Her eyes were red and puffy as she’d been crying for a while. “I just… Need some getting used to it.” 

“Here.” Nora rapidly rummaged through her food bag and fished out a few paper tissues, eventually handing them to her. “You sure you’re not hungry?” She asked in a gentle, motherly tone, but the former nurse shook her head, wiping tears away from her damp eyes, along with some traces of make-up. 

“You know, we should do something else. We can’t just sit here forever, waiting and moping.” The detective stated. “Of course, we’re too tired for physical activities, but-” and he sat down “-we could just talk, y’know? Get to know each other.”

As much as Monroe’s suggestion made Jim sick, the idea of silently listening to more crying or talking about the Doctor’s condition or even worse, the Warrior’s location made him sicker. “Fine.” He finally said, earning a smile from the other man, who then said: “I’ll start. My name’s Monroe Higgins, I’m 27 years old and, before I was a time traveller,” he actually chuckled on that “I was a detective, in New York city.” He paused to take a bite of one of the chicken nuggets, then proceeding to resume talking with his mouth full. “And I didn’t expect these to be so damn good, Jesus! But I digress. I was born and raised in Buffalo, New York. My family stayed there when I moved to the Big Apple, at the age of 23, after I completed my academy training.” He stopped. He had just realised that he was never going to see his family again and he felt his eyes water up. When he looked up, his gaze met Nora’s, and he then knew he had been silent for too long, so he swallowed the food and cracked some sort of smile. “A-and I spent the next four years in New York, I joined the NYPD and then became a detective, that’s…” He pressed his lips together. “That’s about it. Quite boring.”

Nora, who was holding Farha’s hand to comfort her, nodded at him, and in her eyes he saw so much compassion and empathy; he just wished he could’ve opened up to her, let everything out, even cry on her shoulder if he had felt like it. As silence had fell onto the group again, the female U.N.I.T. agent glanced rapidly at everyone else, then deciding to share her story next. “I’m Nora Hallow. I’m 29 years old.” 

Monroe blinked; he didn’t think she’d be older than him. She certainly didn’t look like it exteriorly, but there was indeed something about her attitude, posture, and most of all, her way of treating everyone -just like she was holding the other woman’s hand- that really showed she wasn’t just some girl in her early twenties. And that she had gone through a lot already. 

“I’m from Bournemouth, UK. My dad still lives there, but my mum left when I was a teenager. They divorced and I kept living with my dad. In the courtroom, my mother said she didn’t care who I went with. She kind of never wanted me.” A tiny, sad cackle escaped her lips as she said so. “Soon after that, my father started drinking, but I didn’t stick around enough for things to get bad. As soon as I turned eighteen, I left and moved to London. It was there that I first had an encounter with an alien race. A bunch of mannequins came to life right when me and my friend Becky were hanging out at the mall. It was pretty crazy, but I later found out they were Autons, controlled by an entity named Nestene Consciousness. After that, I became pretty obsessed with aliens and, at the age of twenty years old, I joined U.N.I.T. It was a rough couple of years, but then I became an agent and have been since.” 

When she finished, she shifted to sit cross-legged on the floor, still not letting go of Farha’s hand. Then, Monroe and her both looked up at Jim, who had been listening, but also not really. He already knew Nora’s life story, and he wasn’t really in the mood for caring about Monroe’s. The agent had been resting up until then, but he still didn’t feel like he had the strength to talk about himself. 

“Jim?” Nora called. 

“I’ll do it.” It was Farha who had just spoke, springing up and sliding her glasses back on. She felt pretty good now, as her tears had poured all of the stress out of her, and now she only felt that weird, empty state of calm you usually feel after crying for a lot of time. The nurse took a deep breath. “My name is Farha Haik and I’m 25 years old. I was born in London and I lived in a muslim family. Money wasn’t a problem until I decided to study medicine, but my parents agreed to pay for their only daughter’s studies. So I went to university and I got my degree, but by then, we were basically broke.” She paused to snuffle lightly. “Then came project C.A.T.E. It offered good money, so I accepted the job… God…” She sighed loudly, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I need to get back to my family, once this is all over.” Nora felt the grip on her hand tighten a little. “Jim said that you can travel in time, is that true?” 

The other two nodded. “Good. I’ll help you, and then I’ll ask the Doctor to take me to my mum and dad.” The other woman smiled gently. “I’m sure he’ll agree.”

As soon as Farha was done talking, Jim felt his guts turn. It was his turn, wasn’t it? One look from Nora confirmed it, so he got ready to speak. He straightened up in his seat, took a breath and--

The door to the operating room slid open and two doctors came out of it, lowering their surgical masks until they were underneath their chins and they were able to speak. “The operation went well.” One of them announced. “The bullet didn’t hit any vital organs, but he did lose a lot of blood. A few days of rest and he’ll be completely fine.”  A collective sigh of relief ensued, then Nora asked: “Can we see him?”

And the medics nodded, leading them inside.

The Time Lord laid on a bed not so far from where he had been presumably been operated: a slab on the opposite side of the room, where another door lead to probably another room, or hallway, no one really cared. The four companions swarmed around the bed, looking down at the man who was just waking up. “Doctor?” Jim asked, in a far better mood now that he had been prevented by sharing his life story. “How are you feeling?” 

He looked a mess: dark circles under his eyes, sweaty hair sticking to his forehead, it was worse than ever before. “I’m…” His groggy voice replied. “Good, I’ll heal.” 

“Do you know what happened?” It was Monroe’s turn to ask, now. 

“The Warrior. He shot me.” 

“Why would he do that?” Nora wondered, frowning. 

“To slow me down. To slow all of us down. If he wanted to kill me for good, he would have shot me twice.” The Doctor found himself slightly relieved at the thought. War didn’t want to kill him, so maybe there still was something of the old him, somewhere inside of him. He could only hope, for now. “Listen, Jim.” He then said, lowering his tone. “You need to get me out of here. We’ve been sitting still way too long.”

“Doctor, no,” Nora protested “You can’t just get up and leave, you need to rest.”

She got a glare from the Time Lord. “ I said I can heal. Don’t worry. If War can do it, so can I. Just get me to the TARDIS, then I’ll be fine.” 

The two agents looked at each other. They sure as hell hoped he was right. 

With Farha and Monroe’s help, they proceeded to pull any needle and restraint out and off of him, and then Jim and the detective lifted him up, wrapping each arm around their necks. With one of them at each side, they all walked out of the room. 

It was the second time they were carrying him out of some sort of hospital and Jim really didn’t wish for him to get used to it. He needed to start to be able to handle himself in a fight, even if he didn’t want to. 

Nora and Farha walked ahead of them, looking around each corner to avoid any encounter with other agents or medics or, worst of all, Kate Stewart herself. It occured a couple of times that they had to change their course, hiding in side rooms until agents walked past them or sneaking in other hallways altogether, but finally, they had reached for the storage room where the U.N.I.T. chief had moved their time machine. Nora had her hand on her gun -reluctantly- because she expected to see guards in front of it, to keep them to leave prematurely, but she strangely didn’t, and soon enough found out why. 

Five black uniform-wearing people laid on the ground around the blue box, seemingly unconscious, since she could see no blood. Still, her eyes darted around. She signed to the others to keep quiet, as they slowly approached the TARDIS and as they all began thinking that whoever had done that wasn’t in fact waiting  for them in the dark behind them, but was hiding inside the spaceship instead, looking forward to their first calm moment to strike and probably kill them all. One hand holding her gun, the other on the door knob, Nora Hallow froze.

“Stop right there!” A female voice had shouted from behind them. The agent’s thoughts immediately went to her boss, but she quickly realised the voice wasn’t the same, as it sounded much younger. She raised her hands, as she was the only armed one, and slowly turned around along with the others.

“Let go of the Doctor and take a step back.”

The Time Lord recognized the long, raven black hair and dark eyes.

“Deborah…” He murmured.

  
**_((To be continued.))_ **


	6. 7x05 - The Silence Of The Lamb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Warrior's adopted sister, Deborah, joins the group. Together, maybe they can put an end to this.

“Let go of the Doctor and step back.” The young girl the Time Lord had recognized as Deborah repeated, the grip on her gun tightening ever so slightly. 

Jim tried to reason with her. “We don’t want to hurt him or you.” He said, lowering the man with Monroe’s help until he was sitting on the ground, holding a hand to his stomach, where his wound still pulsated with pain. “Deborah,” the Doctor called her, weakly. “They’re telling the truth.” 

The Warrior’s sister’s eyes darted around, from one face to the other, even to the rest of the storage room, as if she’d been waiting for someone else to pop out. Then, she finally lowered her gun, putting it back in its case, on her right side. When that was done, she made her way down the few steps to the TARDIS, kneeling in front of the Doctor. 

“What happened?” She asked. 

“Get me into the TARDIS and I’ll explain everything.” 

It took just one look for everyone to agree on what to do next: Jim and Deborah helped the Doctor up on his feet, while the others opened the door and finally stepped inside. There was no first time surprise for anyone, this time around. 

Unsteadily, the Time Lord brought himself up to the console and began operating the switches and levers, starting the engines and finally leaving the U.N.I.T. base. Once they were in outer space, floating freely somewhere above Saturn, he let out a sigh, plopping himself on one of the small seats nearby, looking up at the ceiling. 

“So…” The new addition to their group started “Care to explain who these people are and why you were in that place?”

“We were looking for your brother.” He replied “Have been for the past few--” There was one thing the Doctor hadn’t done yet: realising how much time had passed since their journey had started. It sure felt like an eternity since he had left his safe house on Earth, but how long was that actually? Days? A month? No one seemed to know. He changed subject. “We were in Russia, in the future, we found him but he shot me.”

The girl gulped. Memories of her adoptive brother killing one of the Warlord’s clones like it was no big deal at all still flooding her brain. She looked down at her stolen uniform, and right there, Jim commented: “You don’t look surprised.”

She shook her head. “I’m not. I’ve met him just before I got to you.”

It was the whole group the one who was surprised, instead.

“Where?”

“One of the Warlord’s battleships. He has a whole fleet ready and he’s looking for War too, he needs him for some kind of plan, I couldn’t find out what it was. All I know is that he’s using his manipulative powers to get any race in the universe to help him, just like he did when you first fought him, Doctor.” She paused, shaking at the thought. “Daleks and Cybermen together… And many more.” 

Jim cursed under his breath. “We need to find him before the Warlord does.” And the girl agreed. “Still, my brother remains a far greater threat. And since he knows to be dangerous, he’ll probably be after the other clones of our uncle. As far as I know, he wants to kill the real one.”

“Has he got any idea on where he could be?” Nora asked.

“I don’t think so, he was pretty disappointed when he found out the one he killed was a copy. So he could still be out there, going from ship to ship.” 

The Doctor shifted, leaning forward and immediately regretting the decision when a sharp pain ran through his stomach. He flinched and grunted, but regained his calm pretty quickly. “So he’s using his TARDIS?” He said, glancing at Nora and Jim.

“He most certainly is. When he escaped from the battleship, he didn’t use a vortex manipulator like mine, he used the internal teleport to get somewhere else  _ on  _  the ship, maybe some sort of storage room, where he could’ve hidden his TARDIS.” 

The Doctor let a small, determined smirk curl his lips for an instant. “If he is, then we can track him down, can’t we, Nora?” It dawned on the woman that he was right: the tracking device they had used to track him down until then was still attached and working. “Yes, we can!” She exclaimed. “This explains why the next few entries on the report were such complicated coordinates!” 

“Can you remember them?” 

“No, but I can get in touch with the archives at U.N.I.T.!” She said, but the Doctor’s look made her continue. “We don’t need to go back there, we just need to call them, can we do that, Doctor?” 

Finally, the Time Lord agreed. “Fine. Monroe,” he called “Help me up. Nora, I need you and Deborah here at the console. Jim,” He paused “Make me a cup of tea. Kitchen’s that way. Farha,” He pointed at a corridor to his left, then looked at the hijab wearing woman “I need you to go down to the wardrobe and bring me my blue suit. I can’t stand this stuff anymore.” With that, he pulled at the tight, white t-shirt he had been in since the operation. As everyone began moving, Monroe helped the man up and to the console, on which he leaned. The Time Lord pulled the moving screen to his side and started typing away on the console; the screen showed a blue background, with gallifreyan writings on it. Soon enough, the face of a young, red headed, pale man appeared instead of it. “Hello?” He said, in a strong Irish accent, before furrowing his eyebrows at his own screen. “Who is this?”

Nora jumped into the frame of the camera, which showed what was being seen on the other end in a small rectangle at the bottom right of the screen. “Harry?” She called “It’s me, Nora!” 

The boy on the screen smiled widely. “Hello, Nora! What’s up?” 

Everyone arched an eyebrow at him, Monroe more than everyone else, a sudden wave of jealousy running through him.  _ Who is this boy? _ He thought  _ He looks… Ten! _ But he didn’t say anything and he let Nora do the talking. 

“Harry, listen to me, I need the case report W-A-R-7, and I need it quickly. Can you send it to my IP address?” The Doctor scowled. “The TARDIS doesn’t have an IP address!” 

“Whatever address you can find, Harry!”

The Irish boy cackled, standing up from his chair. “Coming right up!”” And in a matter of seconds, in which he typed at another keyboard in front of another screen, a different page appeared on the Doctor’s computer, showing a list of coordinates. “Need anything else, love?” He asked with a cheeky wink. Monroe saw Nora blush slightly. “No, you silly.” She chuckled “Love ya, bye!” And after that, the Doctor closed the call screen, causing the coordinates to get bigger and more readable. 

“Brilliant.” He commented, typing more on the keyboard “Now we need to get into the tracking program and triangle the coordinates, see if we can find him at any of these.” Nora added. 

“Can you do that by yourselves?” The Time Lord asked her and Deborah, seeing Farha had come up the stairs with his clean clothes and a slightly annoyed face. “I-I think so.” The younger girl confirmed. 

Seeing that the Doctor was stumbling towards what he’d assume was the bathroom or a bedroom, Monroe shot up. “Do you need help?”

“No.” 

 

When he locked the door behind himself, the Doctor sighed. The last time he’d been into a TARDIS bathroom, a very angry Warrior was just outside, with an axe, trying to get in. But of course, he was safe now. Still, he remained perfectly still for a while, back against the metal door, even trying to control his breathing so that he was as silent as possible. Then, when he realised just for how long he’d been doing that, he blinked, starting to move again; he left the door and headed towards the shower box, setting the clean, blue suit on the sink in front of it and then finally beginning to undress. 

It took him a few minutes, mostly because the pain caused him to flinch at any movement, but eventually he was standing completely naked in front of the rectangular mirror, staring at himself. God, he looked like crap. He had been getting skinnier -if that was even possible- since he hadn’t eaten a lot and he certainly hadn’t exercised. His skin appeared paler, almost as white as the bandages which covered the stitches on his wound, and so his freckles stood out even more, along with the colour of his eyes. He suddenly found himself thinking about the last time he’d been naked in front of someone else. Of course, that someone else was the Warrior, but even thinking about past, happier times, just felt bittersweet now, as if the recent events had poisoned their entire relationship. At first, he’d tried thinking that it was not the Warrior, the one killing that many people, that it was something else inside of him instead, like it had happened many times before, just not in this scale. But now his mind kept going back to their last conversation, right before War had shot him, right before  _ he _ was convinced to shoot War. The words  _ I can’t be changed  _ had been echoing in his head since then and he couldn’t let them out. 

The Warrior had ruined everything they had.

That sentence hit him more than everything else; more than the physical pain, more than the psychological suffering. He didn’t think he’d be able to have such a thought, but there it was, and now it had taken over the other Time Lord’s words, covering them like the loud sound of traffic covers a dog’s bark. He felt like his head was about to blow up, he felt hot but the sweat running down his body was cold, he felt like he was about to throw up.

He stepped into the shower and turned the faucet on on one of the sides, until the water coming from above him was ice cold. It didn’t feel good at first, but soon enough he found it rejuvenating, invigorating. He folded his arms on his chest and stood there, shaking from the low temperature, not even caring if his bandages were getting soaking wet. 

The Doctor wasn’t sure of how much time had passed, but when he finally turned the shower off and stepped out of the box, he felt better. One more look at himself in the mirror and his next decision crept up on him. The Time Lord dried himself up with a large towel, then wrapping it around his waist; he wasn’t getting dressed yet. Changing the bandages was a bit trickier, but he eventually did that too, wincing every now and then. Finally, once that was done, he opened the cabinet above the sink and grabbed the razor he hadn’t used in a long time. 

He had one last thought before beginning to shave his beard off: yes, the Warrior had ruined everything. But he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to fix it. And if this new, psycho Warrior was going down, the old Doctor had to come back as well.

 

When the Doctor came out of the bathroom, adjusting his tie around his neck and buttoning his blue jacket, everyone else was standing around the console, and every pair of eyes was on him. As he walked up to them, Jim handed him his cup of tea, which he rapidly downed, somehow managing to not get one drop of the beverage on him. “Have we found him?” The Time Lord asked; tea made by an american wasn’t the greatest, but he didn’t care much at this point. 

Deborah nodded, her long hair now tied up in a ponytail, causing her to look slightly older than she actually was. “He’s on Coxipus IV. Apparently our uncle has a base there.” The Doctor flinched lightly at the mention of the planet where the Warrior’s adventure had first begun, all those years ago, when the older Time Lord had dissolved the other’s chameleon circuit, causing him to shift from the young, human Lihan to the Warrior. But he shook it off. “Let’s go, before it’s too late.” Everyone else agreed, so in a flash they were off. Before the engine started again, Nora found herself glancing at Farha. Minutes earlier, when the Doctor was still in the bathroom, she had found the former nurse in the kitchen, knelt on the floor, praying. The U.N.I.T. agent had felt uneasy at the thought of interrupting her, and now felt just as uneasy at the thought of bringing her with them once more. It just didn’t feel like such a good idea anymore.

Once the TARDIS landed on the sandy, deserted landscape of Coxipus IV, the Doctor felt the beat of his two hearts accelerate. He didn’t know why he was feeling that anxious, maybe it was the eventuality of meeting the Warrior for the first time after he’d been shot by him, or maybe it was being on that planet after all that time, maybe both. He stepped outside and inhaled the respirable air like it was no big deal, while everyone else seemed surprised to be able to breathe on a foreign planet. Right in front of them stood what looked like some sort of huge, white monolith, reaching up to almost touch the sky. It didn’t seem like it had any sort of window whatsoever, just a normal sliding door in the bottom middle of the side they were facing. It reminded the Doctor of the Warlord’s house him and War had visited long ago, when all of this had started. What looked most off, though, was the fact that the building didn’t have any soldier guarding it. It could have been due to the fact that in that time, Coxipus IV was deserted and so no threat could be posed to the base. 

“Well, this looks strange.” Monroe commented. 

“It’s a skyscraper.” Deborah informed him, taking a step forward. “My uncle should be on the top floor as usual, so we better get moving.” Yet when everyone else headed towards the door, she stopped them. “Unless you really want to face whatever army is in there, I have a better idea.” She then suggested, showing her vortex manipulator. Of course, they could’ve done the same thing by using the TARDIS, but it would have attracted even more attention. So, after Deborah told everyone to place a hand on her arm, she punched the coordinates in and finally pressed the teleport button. In a blink of an eye, they were all standing in a really big hall, which must have been the top floor. The first thing Farha noticed were the multiple bodies on the floor, most of them being organic aliens, but there still were some pieces of Daleks here and there. She almost screamed. 

“How did he…” Jim murmured, staring at a Dalek head lying right next to his left foot. Before anyone could say something, a gunshot caught their attention; it came from the only door on the larger side of the room where, upon closer inspection, a trail of blood started, continuing its crimson way into the other room. “Quick!” Deborah said, grabbing her gun, mirrored by Jim, Nora and Monroe. 

As they burst into the room, they indeed found more dead bodies, but the whole place was silent now. The only low, almost inaudible sound was the light breathing of the man who was standing still in the middle of the central corridor: the Warrior. 

Stained with the blood of his victims as usual, he didn’t look armed, which made everything he’d just done even more terrifying. In his hand, though, he held another one of those black stones, a sign that the Warlord’s clone hadn’t lasted too long. 

No one spoke, but he must had heard them anyways, because he turned around, The Warrior grinned.

“War.” The Doctor saluted him with a small nod; all around him, his armed companions had their guns lifted. Even Farha, who had been unarmed until now, crouched to get one of the dead soldiers’ rifle, to the Time Lord’s disappointment.

War fake-pouted. “Have you come to take me away and heal me?” He asked “I’m glad you recovered, Doc. It just wouldn’t have been the same without you.”

The older one scowled, but Monroe was quicker. “Shut up and put your hands up, or I’ll fill you with holes.” He said angrily. The Warrior raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“Oh, daddy’s mad,” He snickered, looking back at the Doctor. “Since you’re the only one without a gun, what are you gonna do? Spank me?” Then, he burst out laughing. “What’s so funny?” Jim snapped.

“It's just that I would probably enjoy that.” War then seemed to notice Deborah, and he stopped laughing for a bit. “Hello, sis! I see you joined my fan club. That’s adorable, I’m flattered!” 

Jim’s grip on his weapon tightened. “Can somebody shut him up?” 

“It’ll be my pleasure.” Monroe took a step forward, aiming his gun. It all slowed down as War cocked his head to a side, smirking. Then, the first bullet flew through the air, missing his shoulders of a couple inches. 

“Fuck!” The detective shouted, opening fire again, but nothing seemed to hit his target. 

“Stop!” Yelled the Doctor “You’ll kill him!”

Deborah stepped forward as well. “He’s right, aim for the legs!” Then, she began shooting as well, followed by Nora, Jim and Farha. As the five of them all firing bullets made it impossible for the Warrior to get too close, he decided against it, dashing behind one of the desks and grabbing one of the guns from the floor.

What came next for all of them was all about shooting almost blindly above their heads, trying to hit something. The Doctor had already taken cover as well, his back against the metal desk, his eyes closed. He had to do something, or someone could have been hurt really badly. He tried to get up again, but the sharp pain in his stomach caused him to almost scream, falling back in his sitting position. 

_ Bloody Hell. _

Nora had hid behind one of the desks on the opposite side, along with Monroe, and they were both taking turns in shooting and ducking in alternate moments, so one of them was always covered. Jim had rushed somewhere else, just like Farha and Deborah, and she could see none of them, but the gunshots coming from someplace ahead of them told her they were both still alive. She knew this wasn’t how the Doctor had wanted it to go, but they probably had no choice anyway. As she ducked back down and Monroe shot up, the door to the room slammed open, greeting a troop of U.N.I.T. agents. She bet the Doctor was surprised and she kind of regretted not telling him of her request of backup. Thankfully they had come quickly enough. The first tranquilizing darts flew and, from a low grunt, she knew some of them had hit their target, but the gunshots didn’t stop, so she stood back up, right next to the detective and…

The Warrior wasn’t holding a gun anymore, since it had probably already lost its charge; instead, he had now an armlet with a laser blade -which was still attached to the arm he had ripped off- in his hands. In the following instants, her eyes weren't fast enough to see where the blade had deflected the bullet to.

Then why did she feel like something was off? There was a feeling growing inside of her, like some sense of dread because of something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. What was it? She hadn’t shot that bullet, she hadn’t missed, she wasn’t supposed to feel like she had failed at something, like something inside her had died… No, not inside of her. She quickly turned her head towards Monroe. He looked fine, he wasn’t hurt but… His eyes, they were wide open, in shock. She saw his lips move slowly, to pronounce the words “Oh no”

_ “Oh no” _

_ “Oh no no no” _

As she went back to look forward, everything seemed to regain its normal speed.

“Oh no no no no!” Monroe was yelling. His voice even cracked as if he was about to cry, and there were indeed tears in his eyes. 

Then, Nora heard the Warrior laughing maniacally. She wondered why; the world wasn’t moving in slow motion anymore, yet she was still confused, numb. And then she finally saw what had happened. All it took was moving her gaze a little to the left.

There she was standing on weak legs, a hand on her neck, her eyes as open as Monroe’s, the same shock in her dark brown irises, behind her rectangular glasses. 

Farha desperately tried to make pressure on the bullet hole in her neck, but lots of blood had already poured out copiously, nearly invisible on her similarly coloured hijab. But Nora hadn’t shot.

Weird how that was the agent’s first thought. It hadn’t been her, her trigger finger had been too slow, meaning…

She turned once again towards Monroe, but he was already running towards the muslim woman. 

Meanwhile, the Warrior had fought against the power of the many darts piercing his skin and had lifted the small black stone above his head. It took him a bit of strength to crack it open with a hand, but when he did, he started laughing as pitch black smoke came out of it. He inhaled it all, his eyes closed in pure bliss. Then, he finally dropped on the floor, unconscious. 

_ “Get him out of here, quick!”  _ One of the agents of the troop had yelled, Nora didn’t really care which one. She ran after Monroe, followed by Deborah and the others. 

“Farha!” The detective was calling her, without answer. The nurse was losing blood all over, both from her neck and from her mouth; she couldn’t breathe or speak. Jim knelt next to her as well, pressing his hands where Farha’s weak one wasn’t doing much anymore. “We need a medic!” He shouted at his colleagues. “Quick!”

Farha Haik’s brown eyes darted from one of them to the other, inexorably getting slower and slower. “Deborah, we need to get to the TARDIS.” The agent said, and the girl was already setting the coordinates, but her hands were shaking too much. The Doctor was still standing above all of them and he had noticed. He let one hand rest on Deborah’s wrist, shaking his head. “I’m sorry.” He said.

“What?!” Monroe jumped up quickly “We can’t let her die like this! We--” He was silenced by Nora, who had gotten up as well and had wrapped her arms around him. 

“We… Can’t…” He kept on, weaker.

Jim was slowly letting go.

And Farha was too.

 

The U.N.I.T. agent canceled the request for a medic -and exchanged it for a troop to clean all the bodies in the building- shortly after, once they’d gotten back to the TARDIS. The headquarter informed him about the Warrior, telling him about how he was in a safe, isolated cell and that they could go speak to him as soon as they wanted. Jim agreed and closed the call on the computer screen, then lifting his gaze to look at the Doctor, who stared at him back tiredly. He knew the Time Lord felt like everything had happened because they had chosen to use weapons, but there was someone who actually blamed himself.

Monroe had stormed right through the console room as soon as the door to the blue box had opened; he had thrown on the ground everything he had found in his way, like a kid throwing a tantrum, and had finally headed towards one of the side corridors, where he hoped he’d find somewhere more private. Finally, he had settled for a spare bedroom which looked like no one had been in for a long time. For an instant, he had wondered who it was for, since the Doctor had lived alone for quite some time, but then he had quickly shaken the thoughts off, sitting on the edge of the bed with his back to the door. He had tears running in streams down his flushed cheeks and his hands in his lap. The detective wasn’t able to control his sobs anymore. The truth was he had run off because he didn’t want to be seen like that; he had felt it creeping up on him as soon as he had seen Farha’s wound, and now he was letting it all out. He was crying and sobbing, but he also felt like screaming at the top of his lungs. He felt terrible and at absolute fault. He had killed her, he had killed Farha, it was his fault and his only--

_ Knock knock. _

He didn’t answer, but when the door opened, he turned his head slightly to see who had come in and, to his relief, it was Nora. The woman, after closing the door behind herself, approached him with a worried expression on her face, but he still remained silent until she sat next to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. Monroe stifled another sob, biting his tongue to try to stop his own crying in vain. He was indeed happy that she had been the one coming to talk, yet she was the one he wanted to cry in front of the least; it all made the situation quite strange. 

After a quiet, full minute, Nora rubbed his shoulder from above his coat. “Monroe…” She murmured, but before she could say anything else, he burst out bawling again. 

“It’s my fault! I killed her!  _ I KILLED HER! _ ” He howled, burying his face in his hands, his whole body shaking. As Nora found herself tearing up too, she leaned forward, pressing her cheek against his back, hearing the beat of the man’s agitated heart underneath his clothes. “It’s not your fault…” She tried, her eyes closed.

“It is… It should have been me… It should have been me!” He shouted, pushing her away, luckily without hurting her. Now, the woman was staring at him with watery eyes and her lips parted, while he stared back with a crimson face. “What…?” She whispered. He answered, returning to stare at the wall: “I’m the one who was never going to see his family again! If someone had to die, it should have been me! Not her! She still had something, she had a  _ life _ ! I have... “ The detective threw his hat against the wall in front of him, messing his hair up in the process. “I have  _ nothing! _ ”

More silence ensued, in which more tears streamed soundlessly down the man’s face and in which Nora, being on the verge of crying as well, found herself having one single thought. There was a way she thought she could have made him feel better, if even for a few seconds. A way she could have made  _ them both _ feel better. Something she had fantasized about a few times since they had met, despite everything. Something that went against all the hurt and suffering they had gone through, something that proved them that there still was something good in the universe for them, now that they were sitting next to each other. Something so close, it was just at reach.

And so Nora extended her arms. She placed each hand on each side of Monroe’s stubbled face. She leaned in and she kissed him. She kissed him not because she felt forced to by the situation, nor because she was desperate, nor because she pitied him.

She kissed him because she was in love with him, and now that their lips were finally together, glued to each other by a moist layer of tears -neither of them cared- she had finally realised that when he had said he had nothing, he thought he was going to lose her as well. But no, that was not going to happen, Nora wouldn’t have let it happen. 

That kiss meant  _ ‘No, you have something. You have me. We both have something.’ _

Of course, at first the kiss was not reciprocated, mostly because Monroe was in such a state of shock and of mixed emotions, he basically did not know what was going on, but when it finally hit him, he let his whole body turn towards his mate and his hands on the sides of her neck, pulling her even closer to him. 

They both fell onto the mattress together, and it wasn’t long before Monroe’s coat was on the ground -Nora’s hand flinching lightly when it touched the outline of his gun- along with his shoes and the woman’s jacket. Next were her shoes and his tie, immediately followed by his shirt. To Nora’s faint surprise, he was wearing an undershirt; then she remembered every detail about him and it made sense. It also explained why he always felt so hot. Why was she thinking about that?

The undershirt came off as well, landing silently on the floor somewhere, and she straddled him, letting her hands roam his chest, caressing the hot skin there and finding it hairier than she’d have thought, but liking it nonetheless. Meanwhile he worked his way down the buttons of her blouse, undoing each and every one of them and finally helping her out of the unnecessary clothing. From then on, it was just a matter of minutes before they were both completely free of any unwanted fabric, rolling onto the made bed, kissing, feeling each other’s warmth, inhaling each other’s scent.

 

When Nora had gone after Monroe, earlier, the rest of the group had remained in the console room: Deborah leaning against one of the railings, arms folded on her chest; the Doctor against the console, his head sunken down between his shoulders, his eyes closed; and Jim just… Standing there, in the middle of the way, feeling utterly empty. He already had to deal with the weight of the lives he had taken back at the Asylum, desperately attempting to blame the ‘kill or be killed’ thought he had, but now it was different. First and foremost, he hadn’t been the cause of Farha’s death, he couldn’t just take the blame for it. He of course wished he could have done more, but seeing the others’ faces, he was sure everyone did. For the first time in a while, the agent took off his coat -slowly, almost as if every single action caused him to feel pain all over his body- and let it hang over the railing. A rustling sound could be heard as Deborah slid down to sit on the steps leading to the door, now resting her head on the metal bar at her side.

“The agents said…” Jim started, however not seeing any reaction “The agents said the Warrior has been locked up in one of U.N.I.T.’s most secure cell.” He explained.

“Most secure?” The Doctor bitterly cackled “Nothing’s secure with him.” Then, the Time Lord stood up straight from his position, glaring at Jim. “Nor with you.” As he proceeded to walk towards the corridor Monroe had stormed through, presumably heading to his own bedroom, he added: “Find somewhere to sleep. We’ll visit him tomorrow, if he hasn’t already killed Kate Stewart herself.”

 

Nora let out a long, happy sigh. 

The soft and warm feeling of the blanket on her naked body made her feel safe, just as the presence of the man lying next to her did. She reached one hand out to Monroe, only to hear him sit up and get off the bed. It startled her, because the first thought she had was:  _ He’s leaving me. _

But he wasn’t. The woman watched his bare back bend over to fish something out of the pile of clothes on the floor; more specifically, out of his coat. When he seemed to have found it, he got back on the bed, and she finally saw what he’d taken: in his left hand, he held his cigarettes and his lighter. 

“Do you think I can smoke in here?” He asked her, his voice sounding raspy and groggy, cracking up on a few words as he hadn’t really had the time to warm it back up after crying for so long. Nora shrugged, and Higgins did the same afterwards. She cracked a soft smile while he brought a cigarette to his lips and, as he lit it, she found him more beautiful than ever. The detective inhaled the smoke and, after a couple of seconds, blew it out, creating a small column which slowly but surely disappeared soon after. No alarm went off, so they figured everything was alright. 

Monroe was staring ahead of himself, his back leaning against the headboard, the blanket covering the lower half of his body. As more smoke came out of his mouth, Nora didn’t cough, nor she found it disgusting. Instead, she asked:

“Can I try?” Her voice sounded as tired as his, but she didn’t mind.

Higgins looked at her and, for a moment, let his eyes wonder her pale skin in the dim light of the room and how her dark hair caressed her shoulder, how it brought out her gorgeous blue eyes. And his cigarette almost fell right out of his parted lips.

“Sure.” He replied. Somehow, he wasn’t embarrassed or awkward anymore, in front of her. He felt like they were equals now, he was no longer afraid of her judging him. His index finger and thumb closed around the thin, white paper and he handed the cigarette to her, holding it as she locked her lips around it. He gulped. She breathed in and soon after breathed out. Again, she somehow didn’t cough. Instead, she liked it. She smiled at him and he let himself smile back. They kissed the night away.

 

**_\-------_ **

 

The Doctor’s eyes shot open after a few hours -or so he figured- in the darkness of his own bedroom. For a while, in his sleep filled state of mind, he’d forgotten what was happening outside his doors and, rolling onto his side, he reached out a hand to feel the familiar silhouette of the Warrior, but… Nothing. Nothing but a sharp pain to the side he was currently lying on. He groaned as he immediately shifted back in his previous position, facing the ceiling, and sighed. He remembered everything. 

Not so easily, he got up and got dressed, not bothering to turn on the light. He headed out of the room once he had put on his pair of red Converse and fixed his tie. Walking past the bathroom door, he touched his clean shaven chin. Was he going to commit to his decision and do his hair as he once did too? No, not today. Instead, he kept on going and poked his head into the console room; there, Jim and Deborah were both still sleeping on makeshift beds, consisting of the agent’s coat and the girl’s stolen uniform jacket. Probably, the Doctor thought, he didn’t want to wander too deep into the TARDIS, afraid of getting lost and, honestly, he couldn’t blame them for thinking so. Therefore, he walked part of the way back and entered the first door on his left: the kitchen. The food in the fridge was practically unusable, so he opted for what he could find in the cupboards. Tea, coffee, cereal, cookies, general breakfast food. And so the small rectangular table was all set a few minutes later, when a sleepy Monroe stepped into the room, rubbing his eyes, followed by Nora. They had probably been drawn in by the noise of the Doctor emptying the fridge of all the bad food. “Wow.” The woman commented, her lips curled and the Doctor, upon seeing her, felt lightly relieved to see someone smile after what had happened. He also noticed how both her hair and Monroe’s was messy, how the man’s shirt looked like it had been worn in a hurry-- In fact, all of their clothes looked like the two of them had taken them off and put them back on very quickly or as soon as they were awake. The Time Lord arched an eyebrow, sensing exactly what had happened, but decided to let it slide, since it was none of his business. Instead, he cracked a small smile himself. “I woke up before any of you, so I decided to make some breakfast.” 

“Great idea.” Monroe yawned. Even after the night he had probably had, the detective looked spent, like his usual rather jolly behaviour had toned down a bit. Of course, the Doctor didn’t expect him to be fine after… Well, after yesterday. The couple sat down at the table and began eating whatever they wished, then slowing a bit down when the Time Lord advised them to leave some for the other two. Speaking of which, Jim and Deborah joined them soon after and, even though the U.N.I.T. agent looked as half-asleep as anyone else, he still glared at Monroe as he’d have known all too well how he’d spent the night. The Doctor noticed it and quickly tried to start a conversation. “As soon as you are all ready, we’re going to the U.N.I.T. headquarter in London. I’ll make sure we get there a little time after the agents brought the Warrior there, so we don’t find any surprises.” Luckily, no one had much to say about it, so they all kept eating. As he sipped his tea, the Doctor noticed how they all were silent, as if no one wanted to talk about anything in fear of ending up discussing the night before and, consequently, about Farha’s death. And whose bullet had caused it. He saw how Monroe lightly flinched at any sudden moves from his companions, as if he’d been terrified of one of them to abruptly lash out at him, and he felt terribly sorry. As many times before, he wished this would be over soon. 

 

Once everyone was done and had gone to get ready, the Doctor was cleaning up the kitchen alone, when suddenly Nora’s voice came from the doorway. 

“He’ll be fine.” She said, looking down at him, one hand on the wall. “I’ll make sure of that.”

The Time Lord knew who she was talking about and nodded.

“Thank you.”

 

With one hand on the door handle -having landed the TARDIS at about ten minutes after the Warrior had been brought into his cell- the Doctor looked at the group. 

Nora’s hair was messier than before, but she had tried to fix it ever since she’d woken up. Monroe’s eyes still looked pretty swollen and he had slightly darker circles under them; also, his gaze seemed duller. Deborah had let her hair down again after changing her clothes to something more comfortable she had found in the TARDIS wardrobe, that something being faded jeans, a t-shirt and a light jacket, and overall looked fine, maybe just a bit sore from sleeping on the floor. Jim, though seemingly fine, kept shooting glares at both his colleague and the detective, looking sort of childish in doing so. 

One more glance to his fucked up companions and the Time Lord opened the door, ready to face the Warrior once and for all.

 

**_((To Be Continued.))_ **


	7. 7x06 - No Death Can Tear Us Apart - SEASON FINALE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The season finale of season 7. I do not own the song I quoted in the chapter.

Stepping out of the TARDIS and into the sterile, cold air conditioning of the U.N.I.T. headquarter, the Doctor found himself reminded of how much he hated that place. He blamed so many things on the organisation, but it only now dawned on him that he couldn’t put them at fault for trying to save the universe from the Warrior; it just wasn’t that easy. But maybe -he thought as he and his companions made their way to Kate Stewart’s office- if two agents hadn’t come to him and hadn’t joined him, maybe he wouldn’t have had to ‘recruit’ more people, like Monroe or… Farha.

 _No._ He had to stop blaming himself for the death of his companions, even though it was hard. He had to stop at least for now.

The group of five people stepped inside Stewart’s office without saying anything; only the leader demanded to be taken to the recently arrived prisoner. Without many cerimonies, the woman lead them out the room and down a countless quantity of identical looking hallways, all painted white and with the same bright lights on the ceiling, until they reached what she explained was the ‘most secure cell in the world’.

Those words again: _most secure_. The Doctor wasn’t one bit convinced on that and his senses were sharp, ready for anything to go downhill. He warned the others to stay alert as well, carefully bothering to say it out of Kate’s earshot, so that he wouldn’t have to listen to those words again. Whatever restraints they were using in that room, they weren’t going to hold forever and the Time Lord knew it all too well. The Warrior probably knew it too, and that’s why he had made sure to land the TARDIS there soon after he had been brought in, so that they’d have more time. Once the door opened and they all walked in, he began figuring out what he’d have done. Was he going to kill the Warrior so that the regeneration process could fix whatever was wrong with him? No, he couldn’t do that, but the closer he got to the middle of the ‘cell’, the more his mind settled on the idea, swimming in it as if it’d been a cool lake in a hot summer day. And the more he hated it and himself for it.

The ‘cell’ wasn’t exactly a conventional one: there were no walls holding the prisoner in, no special steel bars. Instead, the whole, large, rectangular room was his confinement, with the only way out being the door they had come through. The Doctor would have remarked how foolish that was, hadn’t he seen the thick net of the laser grid turning on as soon as they were all past the door, who then slid back close. The Warrior was imprisoned at the very centre of the room, so tied up he could’ve been mistaken for an egyptian mummy, from afar. A white straitjacket blocked his folded arms on his chest, while heavy and thick looking straps held his legs still together and anchored to the floor. Chains hung down from a catwalk several feet above them and wrapped themselves around his neck, waist and ankles, but the most scary thing -at least for Monroe- was the white mask which covered the Time Lord’s face from his eyes down, giving him only three small gaps in front of his mouth for breathing. His blue eyes stared at the six of them as they walked until a line on the floor told them to not go further.

“Hello, Doc.” He said, his voice lightly muffled by the mask. “Did you miss me already?”

The Doctor stared back at him, but didn’t answer; instead, he asked Kate:

“What are you going to do with him?”

“We were sorta hoping you’d have an idea.” She admitted. “But we can’t let him go.”

“And you can’t hold him here for a long time.” Nora stated.

Kate Stewart nodded. “We do have a possible solution, Doctor, and I’m sure you have thought of it too.” To that, the older Time Lord looked away. He couldn’t stand to look War in the eyes while plotting to kill him. But still, that was all there was to it, right? Killing him once. Stabbing him or shooting him or poisoning him until he regenerated in someone else, someone sane, someone… Better.

_If it even worked like that._

“I don’t know yet.” He finally stated. “I need to think about it.” What was it that kept him from taking the decision? The fact that he didn’t want to watch his loved one die in front of him? Again? Or maybe it was the fear of him regenerating but not going back to normal, that paralyzed him. And what if they had kept trying that approach and he ran out of regenerations? What was going to happen next? Would the Doctor have let the Warrior die a cannibal psychopath after many attempts at healing him, marking one of the greatest failures of his whole, long life? He wasn’t even sure how many lives the other Time Lord had left! One? Two? He knew he had already died plenty of times, and he was pretty aware of his timeline, enough to know what had happened and when, but the exact number of deaths? A large detail he wasn’t in the know of. The Doctor noticed the slight change in Kate Stewart’s face; disappointment? No. Annoyance? No. Worry? Probably.

As if he’d been listening to every thought the older Time Lord had had, the Warrior cackled from underneath all of his restraint.

“I don’t think you can risk it.” He paused, then correcting himself with a grin. “I don’t think you _want to_. I’m sorry, Doctor, but you’ll have to make a choice. Everyone in this room is thinking it. Hell, everyone in the whole fucking universe is.” And then he finally cocked his head, as he usually did. “What’s it gonna be?”

Monroe looked pretty shaken. “Does he _ever_ shut up?!” He snapped, under his breath.

But the Warrior continued. “Death for me… Or death for whoever stands in my way from now on?” He licked his sharp teeth, without anyone being able to see it. “Starting from you U.N.I.T. fuckers… Oh, I’m looking forward to have a big… _Big_ feast with you all…”

“Doctor, that is a threat to all of the people in here, we have to do something!” Stewart ordered, the worry in her eyes getting more and more obvious.

“We… Can’t…” The Doctor blurted out, beginning to feel sick at the mental image of what the Warrior had just said. “I need…” He felt week on his knees, he was about to fall down. Monroe had taken off his coat and hat. He was pacing quickly towards the chained up man in the middle of the room. “Monroe, no!” Nora screamed, running after him, along with a few other agents. They managed to grab him by his arms, holding him back at about three feet from War. With eyes full of boiling rage, the detective glared at the Time Lord, his hands already clenched in fists, ready to strike.

“Oh, it’s you.” The Warrior snickered. “You’re the one who killed that woman, right?”

Higgins’s eyes shot wide open and he struggled against the agents’ grips.

“You want to hit me, don’t you? You do. You need to hit me. Hit me.”

In that moment, the detective swore to see something inside the man’s eyes, some kind of dark smoke, a familiar vision… The same smoke he’d seen when the Warrior had broken the stone dropped by his uncle’s clone.

But from then on, all he wanted to do was punch the man.

“Hit me.” War repeated.

Monroe pulled more.

“ _HIT ME!_ ”

Suddenly, Higgins was free from the men’s grasps, and was dashing forward, filling up the distance between him and the prisoner.

It felt good when his knuckles finally met the white mask, smashing through it, reaching for the skin beneath it and hitting that too, causing the Warrior to be abruptly pushed to a side, immediately brought back up by the chains like some sort of human punching ball. Monroe would have done it again. Well, he would have done it a million times more, just because he wanted it--

No, because _the Warrior_ wanted him to.

An instant of hesitation was enough for the agents to get a hold of him again, basically dragging him back to where the others stood. Only then he noticed how Nora held her left cheek in terror. No, not terror. Sure, there were tears in her eyes, maybe because she’d thought she’d have lost him back there but… Her cheek, it was swelling. And red.

“Did I…” He murmured, getting up. “Nora, I’m…” She turned away from him quickly, holding back a sob. Deep down, she knew he hadn’t wanted to hit her, but he had, and now her cheek hurt from its encounter with his elbow and…

“Turn the grid on!” Kate’s voice shouted at the soldiers standing on the catwalk. Seconds later, a laser net similar to the one on the door, only cubical, closed around the Warrior, leaving him barely sixteen square meters around him to move. Not that he could, anyway.

As the woman turned back to the Doctor, determination had replaced the worry. “Either you make this choice or I will.” She said. “And I’m not letting my agents die.”

“Give me twenty minutes.” The Time Lord replied, feeling better despite everything.

“And I’ll give you the answer.”

He gave War one last look before they all got out, and he was staring back at him, the everlasting grin still on his lips, even after Monroe’s sucker punch had left him bleeding.

 

The Doctor and the others were waiting in a nearby room, some sort of office filled with metal cabinets and paper sheets ordinately arranged in folders. There were some chairs for them to sit, but only Nora had used them, and she was now sitting next to a wall, Monroe knelt in front of her with a bag of ice -promptly handed over to him before- against her swollen cheek, reciting an apology after the other. He really wanted to make sure she knew he hadn’t ever wanted to hit her, that it had been an accident, that he didn’t know what he was doing. And she believed him. It wasn’t that hard to believe; he had been blinded by rage and he could see nothing but the Warrior, so she wasn’t as mad as she could have been. Of course, it still hurt, but to every ‘I’m sorry’ he’d say, she would reply with forgiving, reassuring words.

“What are you going to do?” Deborah suddenly asked the Doctor, while he absent-mindedly checked one of the files just lying on a table.

Jim stepped to him as well. “This isn’t the time for paperwork.” He said, pushing the folder away from under his hand. The Time Lord looked at them both. Luckily, Stewart had left them alone to let them deliberate their -well, his- decision, but he wasn’t completely sure they weren’t being listened somehow. So, before he said anything, he grabbed his sonic screwdriver and carefully waved him from one side of the room to the other. A quick look at the results of his scans confirmed that there were indeed no hidden microphones or cameras in there, and the then opened the door and peeked outside, finding no one around. Perfect.

“Listen. Twenty minutes aren’t long enough to make a decision like this.” He finally said. “What? If you don’t choose, she’ll do it for you!” Deborah reminded him. “She’ll kill him!”

“I know!” He replied. “That’s why we have to get him out of here.”

Jim blinked. In fact, everyone else was rather shocked.

“Are you crazy?!” The black man almost shouted, immediately getting silenced by the Time Lord, who lifted a hand and arched one eyebrow.

“If we manage to get him out of that cage but we keep him tied up, he won’t be a problem. We’ll find another solution and then we’ll go back in time to bring him back here and tell Kate. We can do it if we get to the TARDIS, come on!” He had a foot already on the way, but Nora got up and stopped him.

“Wait!” She said. “If we take him with us, he might get loose and kill us all!”

Monroe stood up as well. “She’s right.” Jim found it irritating, how he’d back her up no matter what. The detective continued. “Plus, we’d have to shut him up somehow.”

“I know, he can have quite the mouth.” The younger girl pulled a face, folding her arms on her chest.

“No, that’s not what I meant.” Monroe shook his head. “Yes, he is an asshole,” Due to the Doctor’s look, he apologised “But you see, that’s not just it. Back then, I wouldn’t have punched him, I would have stopped once the agents held me back.”

Nora frowned. “What do you mean?”

The Doctor had already figured it out by now, but since Higgins was about to explain, he let him talk.

“I didn’t want to do it, but when he said ‘Hit me’, I just did. I realised I wanted to punch him right in the face, I wanted it more than anything else in my life.”

Deborah flinched. “Oh god.”

One nod from the Doctor and she knew they had to go immediately.

 

**_“ALERT. SECURITY BREACH LEVEL 5-Z. ALL PERSONNEL MUST LEAVE THE BUILDING. ALL ARMED AGENTS ARE REQUIRED IN SOLITARY CONFINEMENT. I REPEAT…”_ **

 

The voice of Kate Stewart echoed through the room from a speaker in the corner and the whole group figured the message was being delivered to the entire base.

“He did that, didn’t he?” Deborah asked, her hand already on her gun.

The Doctor grinded his teeth. “I’m afraid so.”

“Did what?!” Jim had fished his gun from its case, imitated by Nora and -more reluctantly- by Monroe.

“Remember the stone he got from the clone of my uncle?” The raven haired girl did the same as him, checking if her own gun was loaded. “It must have had some of his… Essence in it, because it allowed my brother to use his powers. He used them on Monroe to get him to punch him.”

“Exactly.” The Doctor confirmed. “That was probably a test to see if they worked.”

“And so now he’s escaping?” Monroe felt used, and angrier than before, but he was trying to keep his calm as much as he could. He didn’t want Nora to get hurt because of him again.

“I’m afraid so.” The Time Lord replied, opening the door just enough to see what was going on outside. The sound of stomping feet headed their way signaled agents running down the hallway, but they didn’t enter the room; instead, the proceeded forward, to the Warrior’s cell. “They didn’t come to call us.” Stated the Doctor. Then, gunshots. “That can’t be good. We need to get there, and fast.”

But once they got outside, he were surprised by something he hadn’t seen upon looking through the open door. Towards the end of the corridor, where the agents had headed, many bodies laid in pools of blood, the armed men who had just taken their lives standing right above them, checking if they were still alive.

“He’s taken control of them!” Deborah exclaimed, hoping not to be heard, but one of the black wearing agents turned his head towards them.

“Fall back!” Jim yelled, opening fire, followed by Nora and Deborah. Monroe stepped back along with the Doctor and, as soon as the five brainwashed people had seen them and were about to shoot back, another troop came around the corner from behind the Doctor, this one being led by Kate herself. They raised their guns and shouted: “DUCK!” And when Jim and the others had moved out of the way they shot their colleagues dead.

“Are you all okay?” Stewart asked once everyone was back on their feet.

The Doctor nodded, mirrored by the others, but it wasn’t over yet.

Another squad of agents came down the other side of the hallway, stepping over the corpses and heading their way. Three up front, three behind. In the middle, War.

With his everlasting grin on his face, he walked fast, shielded by his controlled goons. Jim tried to land a couple of hits on them, but soon enough gave up. “Run!” He ordered, pushing the others further back towards what he hoped was an exit. Before the other team could raise their weapons and shoot them, they took a sharp turn to the left, disappearing into a room. Hopefully, the Warrior didn’t feel like going after them. Luckily, he didn’t; silence fell onto their surroundings pretty soon, with the muffled sound of more gunfire coming from somewhere afar.

Kate Stewart had her face in her hands, taking deep breaths. “He’s going to kill us all.” She said, as her breathing accelerated.

“I think he’s attacking anyone who stands in his way, like he said he would.” Jim commented. “Or at least I hope so.” Everyone just looked at him, and he knew they felt the same way. The group decided to wait in that room for more than half an hour, but it was only five minutes after they had gotten in that the speakers on the wall broadcast another message.

 **_“Hello, Doctor.”_ ** Said the Warrior’s voice from one of the top corners of the room. **_“As you can see, whatever choice you were going to make doesn’t matter now, because I chose what to do myself.”_ ** It was almost impercetible, but his tone had gone a little colder than the usual, as if he’d been angry and not mischievously grinning like always. **_“From now on, I choose my own destiny. You’re not my god, Doctor. You have no say in this.”_ ** Then, something must have happened to the microphone, because the next sound they heard was a loud shriek, which got silenced by what really sounded like fists hitting the receiver.

Kate Stewart got up from her sitting position, uncovering her aching ears with watery eyes. “I don’t care what you do with him,” she said “But you’re going to stop him.”

Monroe also stood back up. “You’re not gonna help us?”

She glared at him. “I’ve lost too many agents, I can’t lose more. It’s time for me to rebuild this organisation and I’d be happy if I were able to do it without that psychopath bursting in here again.” Finally the lifted an index finger and pointed at the door. “Now go.”

“I’m sorry.” The Doctor said.

_“Go!”_

 

Back in the TARDIS, the Time Lord had his hands on the keyboard already, once again using the tracking device to find the Warrior’s position. He did so silently, more determined than ever. Monroe and Nora were still together and the woman had ditched the ice bag, but her cheek was still pretty flushed. Now, instead of apologizing verbally every two seconds, he just held her hand, as they both stared blankly ahead while waiting for news. Maybe they were bracing theirselves for the future fight, or at least Jim thought, eyeing them every now and then and not being able to help but feel jealous. By now, he had embraced his feelings towards Nora and towards her relationship with Monroe and that kept him from lashing out at them, but he still felt like it should have been him, the one holding the woman’s hand. Still, there wasn’t much he could do about it, and he tried to focus on the task at hand, looking forward to the moment where all of this would’ve been over and Higgins would’ve just gone back home. It had to happen, right?

“So he’s not on Jupiter either?” Deborah asked the Doctor, sighing.

“No,” Replied the Time Lord, looking at the data on the screen “But at least now we know the location of a few of the Warlord’s bases. That’s useful.”

The girl nodded. “You’re right.” Then, she paused, frowning at the writings on the screen and leaning forward. “Wait, what’s that?” She questioned, staring at some sort of sudden notification, like an email just received. A smaller window popped up, filled with Gallifreyan symbols.

 

“ _Dearest ladies and gentlemen,_

 _You are all invited to Doctor Malcolm Lecter’s dinner party, on the 31st of October, 1898. Please join us as the egregious Doctor Lecter will expose his latest biology thesis before you all. A delicious dinner will ensue._ ”

 

Deborah read the invitation with a perplexed tone, but the Doctor was quite surprised. “You can read Gallifreyan?” He asked, his eyebrows shooting up, and the girl blinked. “Y-yes, can’t you? Can’t everybody?” As she said that, she looked at the others, who stared back and shook their heads. “Oh.”

“Anyways,” The Time Lord brought everybody’s attention back to the strange message. “The address is somewhere in Piccadilly… Victorian London, but why?”

Nora glanced at the alien writings. “If it’s Gallifreyan, does it mean…?”

“Yes, it’s him.” He replied.

“I guess we’re going to a party.” Jim commented.

No one really bothered getting changed into period clothing, since they’d assumed the party was some sort of joke from the Warrior, a way to get them all in the same place and then leave again or -as Monroe feared the most- kill them. Still, everyone tried to keep their hopes up as they got out of the TARDIS in a dark Piccadilly street, lit only by the many streetlamps on both of its sides. There were no moon and stars whatsoever, as the sky looked covered in pitch black clouds; it would have probably began raining soon, so the group was eager to get to the indoors. The invitation had said to be there at 9 pm, and so the Doctor had obliged in driving the time machine, though doing so sort of reluctantly. Once they’d gotten out, they immediately noticed the house at their destined address: it was barely a normal house, maybe more of a mansion, all painted white, except for the various stone carvings and ornamentation which sort of made it look like an ancient greek temple. Thought being attached to the nearby ones by its walls, it stood taller than most buildings around those parts, sporting five storeys, and had many windows facing the street. The Doctor stared at the balcony at the very top and calculated its height: it must’ve been a fifty feet fall, more or less. Why was he worried about it? _Just a bad feeling._ He answered himself.

The five of them walked up the set of stone stairs up to the front door and finally the Time Lord knocked on its wood. Not long after, a young housemaid opened the door, smiling at them. “You must be Doctor Smith and his friends!” She exclaimed. “Please do come in, everyone else is here already!” She said as she ushered them in.

“Everyone else?” Monroe asked, voicing everyone’s thoughts, while they stepped into a nice, well lit hallway, immediately being led by the housemaid to another wooden door. “All the other guests, of course!” She smiled as she opened the door to a hall that could have easily been the biggest room in the whole building. Expensive paintings were nailed to the walls, in golden frames; crystal chandeliers hanged down from the beautifully decorated ceiling; the floor was made of marble of a beautiful shade of whiteish-grey, which made the Doctor think they were standing in a ballroom. And he would’ve been right, if there hadn’t been a long, wooden table in the middle of the floor, with six people already sitting at it. They all turned their heads to them, showing their faces; three men and three women, probably married couples, looked at them in awe, which was quite strange, considering the group’s outfits and overall confused appearance. Some of them still had dried up blood on their clothes.

And still they smiled at them when the Doctor and the others approached the table and, once they were close enough, a short man with blond, curly hair and unthinkable facial hair got up from his seat, followed by the rest of the guests, and greeted them.

“Doctor Smith?” He asked, extending his hand to the Time Lord. “I’ve heard so much about you, you’re guest of honor of tonight!” He exclaimed gleefully, then proceeding to shake everybody else’s hands. “I’m Donald O’Hara and this,” The man introduced himself, then placing a hand on the shoulder of a tall, stern looking woman with piercing blue eyes and dark brown hair. “Is my lovely wife, Mary.”

“Hello, Doctor Smith.” The woman saluted, with a small nod.

“Good evening, madam.” The Doctor replied, “These are my assistants. Jim Martin, Nora Hallow, Monroe Higgins and…” He paused, his hand lifted and pointing to Deborah, as he realised he didn’t know her last name. He had to say something quickly, so he just blurted out the first surname his mind thought of. “Deborah Tyler.”

Of course, that caused the girl to arch an eyebrow, but she played along, shaking hands and saying hello. The strangest thing was how nobody seemed to care about their modern clothes, especially about Deborah’s more casual look. The Doctor noticed all of that, but didn’t speak about it, since it was time to meet the rest of the guests. The other two men -one with brown hair and green eyes, the other with salt and pepper hair and beard and chocolate brown eyes- introduced themselves as Ethan Hastings and Richard Ives, while the women were named Vanessa Hartridge (a beautiful middle aged woman, with dark red hair and ice blue eyes) and Mina Ives, a younger, blonde girl who Richard explained being his daughter.

“Oh, Doctor Lecter seems to be late.” O’Hara -who had previously said to be an Egyptologist, as was his wife- giggled, caressing his golden moustache.

The younger, blonde girl smiled. “I’m sure he’ll be with us shortly.” She said gently as they all sat down at the table. And then, as if he’d been summoned by the two speaking his name, the Warrior appeared from one of the side doors to the room wearing an elegant, black suit, a smirk on his freshly shaven face.

“Welcome, my dear guests!” He announced as he walked up to his chair at the end of the table opposite to where the Doctor was sitting. “I’m glad you all made it here tonight.” He said, raising a glass filled with wine “May you enjoy this night of fine meats and drinks!” He took a long sip, then set the glass down and clapped.

“Bring the first dish!”

The doors opposite to the ones he’d come in were opened and out came two maids, pushing a long cart with a just as big piece of roasted meat on it. It looked like some sort of meatloaf, but very much larger than the usual. But if it wasn’t that, what could it have been? A ham? But what sort of animal had such a long thigh? Then, it dawned onto the Doctor that they weren’t about to eat normal meat. He looked at his companions as thunder cracked outside, signaling the star of a rainstorm. Everyone else looked back at him, puzzled, but it didn’t take long for them to figure out what was going on. As the portions were being served, the Time Lord stared straight into the eyes of the Warrior, who replied with his usual smirk and a light nod with his glass of wine. The Doctor didn’t know how he’d managed to fool the other guests into coming that night, but now that he’d seen what he was going to feed them, he knew the man had nothing good going through his brain.

Once everyone had meat in their plates, the so-called Doctor Lecter lifted his drink again. “Before we start,” He began, glancing at O’Hara, who had the fork to his mouth already but hadn’t actually eaten yet “I want to make a toast.” He added as he got up and everyone else raised their glasses. Jim promised himself to not touch any food or drink during the night. He had guessed what the meat was, but who knows what the Warrior had put in the wine?

“To Doctor Smith!” War exclaimed, grinning from ear to ear “And his companions, for being here tonight with us.” He then cackled, looking at the other six people. “And to my lovely friends as well, of course! Bon appétit.” Finally, the Time Lord sat down, picked up his fork, stabbed the juicy unknown meat and lifted it to his lips.

_“Eat.”_

And after that, everyone had their forks in hand. Even Jim. He didn’t know why, but he was suddenly so hungry, and that flesh-- No, meat, looked so good… He bet it tasted even better. Monroe had his lips brushing against the food, Deborah and Nora were cutting it nicely. It took the Doctor all of his strength not to do the same. His hand was twitching above the cutlery, he was about to give in. He couldn’t fight any longer, he had to eat, he had to taste that beautiful, roasted… Leg.

_“STOP!”_

Silence had fallen onto the dining room. Though the six people who sat closer to the Warrior were still chewing, the noise of knives and forks tinkling against the plates had stopped. War snickered, swallowing a piece of the dish. “He’s right, stop.” To his order, everyone was freed from the urge of eating, but O’Hara and the others didn’t, probably because they weren’t aware of what they were actually ingesting.

The Doctor shot up, kicking his chair back and on the floor in the process. “This is disgusting!” He shouted.

“You don’t like the meat?” Mina Ives asked, batting her long eyelashes innocently.

War cackled. “Exactly. Don’t you like the food I had made for you?”

Jim and the others got up as well, and the man spat in his plate. “It’s human flesh you’re feeding us!” He barked.

Vanessa frowned. “Don’t be silly, sir, of course it’s not!”

“You see, my darling Vanessa,” ‘Lecter’ moved to stand next to her, a hand on her shoulder. He leaned in to whisper:

“He’s saying the truth.”

 _“What?!”_ The woman screamed _“This is outrageous!”_ It was clear that she was fighting back the urge to throw up.

“Come on, my dear!” The Warrior burst out laughing. “It was obvious! Are you really that stupid?” The Doctor could hear the histery in his voice.

By now, the other guests were terrified, spitting out what they had been chewing on, which made the Warrior slam his fist down on the table in rage.

“You morons!” He roared. “ _This_ is outrageous! You’re insulting me!”

O’Hara seemed to be genuinely on the verge of tears. “L-let us go…” He whimpered.

 _“No!”_ War shouted, with bloodshot eyes. Then, slowly leaning back and taking a deep breath, he fixed the locks of hair which had fallen onto his face. His breath hitched as he cracked an unsteady smile. “Donald, Vanessa, Mary, Mina, Richard, Ethan.” He called the names one by one, looking at all of them. “You will stay.” Those six people froze in their chairs.

“And you will eat.”

To that, they obliged, leaving the Doctor’s group to watch horrified as they feasted onto the human limb like it was their last meal. The Time Lord noticed how he’d only commanded for them to eat, leaving him and the others free to do what they wanted; but it was probably because he had worse orders headed their way.

As the other man sat back down and began eating as well, this time as a civilised-looking human and not like animal, as they’d seen him do until then, he finally shut up, until there was nothing left on his plate.

“Let them go.” Deborah rebuked, clenching her fist around her knife, ready to use it.

Warrior lifted his head to look at her. “I’ve got a better idea, sis.” He replied calmly as he stood back up. “You six,” O’Hara and the others’ heads shot up.

“Take care of them.”

Quickly, with knifes in their hands, the guests shot up from their seats, then launching themselves at the Doctor’s companions, who were rapid enough to push them away, fishing their weapons out. The Warrior was running away again, but the Doctor wasn’t going to let that happen. He readily dodged Mina’s attack, causing the sweet girl to fall flat on the floor with an angry grunt, and dashed to the door War had just gone through, just like he had done before. “Doctor, no!” Jim yelled, but it was too late.

The first few minutes of the pursuit were utterly confusing and loud, as the Time Lord leading the race would continuously grab random objects from all round him -sometimes even chairs or small tables- and blindly throw them backwards, in various attempts at slowing the Doctor down. The man followed War through many rooms and hallways, slamming doors open when the other had closed them behind himself, dodging flying vases and sometimes even twirling paintings, gripping onto corners when he was going to fast and risked slamming into the opposite wall. The Doctor’s breath was beginning to give in, hitching as every inhale caused him to feel a sharp pain to his lungs and to his still hurting stitches. The more he ran, the more fuzzy his head became, so he had to stop to lean against a wall, panting heavily. How much had he run? How far from where he’d started? He couldn’t hear the fighting noises made by Jim and the others anymore, and of course he hoped they were fine, but there was something really weird about that place; something he couldn’t really put his fingers on, after tiring himself so much by running through so many rooms... Actually, _too many._ He was starting to think something was off about that mansion, as it was too vast for its outside appearance, but when his breath finally caught up and his hearts finally slowed down, the Doctor pushed himself off the wall and noticed he’d lost the Warrior. He was now standing in a corridor which floor was entirely covered by a dark red carpet that had a golden pattern running through it: intertwining lines looking like snakes. With a hand on the side wall and the other on his aching stomach, the Time Lord walked down that corridor, passing various doors he didn’t care about, because the realisation of where he actually was was settling into his brain, he just hadn’t focused on it yet. At the end of the hallway, he found himself in a large, living room-like area, and the first thing that caught his eye was the metaphorical elephant in the room: a fallen over table and a painting on the floor. He had passed through there before.

And that’s when it hit him. The house looking smaller on the outside, the infinite number of hallways and rooms, doors that probably led to nowhere, the overwhelming feeling of confusion and the fear of getting lost. There was only one possible answer to all of it: he was standing in a very modified version of the Warrior’s TARDIS.

The other Time Lord had ditched the blue taxi to blend in more into the Victorian London, something the Doctor’s police box couldn’t have done. In fact, he had forgotten how War’s time machine still had a functioning chameleon circuit. If the bad news was the fact that he had lost the Warrior in all of that mess, the silver lining was that he couldn’t leave without taking all of them with him; the Doctor had all the time in the universe to find him.

And that’s when the music started.

Faint, muffled, as if it’d been played in another room somewhere, a violin melody called for him, attracted him, lured him to one of the doors he’d passed by in the previous corridor. The Time Lord walked to it, his hearts beating fast in his chest.

 

 _G# five times, then an F#, A and back to G#_ ;

 

A hand on the doorknob, he opened it and… A set of stairs.

 

_G#, F#, A, G#;_

 

A narrow, dark set of stairs looking like the one you’d normally find going down to a domestic cellar, reached up to a floor far above; maybe those stairs went as far as the top floor, bypassing all the other ones. Anyways, the upstairs was probably as confusing and repetitive as the downstairs, but he didn’t care.

 

_G#, down to a D#, repeated twice, and finally a E._

 

He felt like the moment of the reckoning was growing nearer, and he’d never felt more both determined and frightened in his whole life. As he got onto the first step, a dim lightbulb lit on the side wall, illuminating a sheet of paper on the ground, exactly on the second step. He picked it up as the music repeated itself in its low, hypnotic tones.

 

_“My baby has a swollen face, long stiff limbs,_

_Them eyes are black pits of the place where I’ve been_

_Her hair is long, still smells like mud_

_She answered to my kiss with a rotten tongue._

 

_No Death can tear us apart_

_No Death can tear us apart_

_No Death can tear us apart.”_

 

The Doctor’s eyebrow furrowed as he read the words, accompanied by the music. He felt a sense of dread fall on him as his stomach dropped and his guts turned. The paper sheet had only those words on it, no explanation whatsoever, just some kind of verse. The line ‘answered to my kiss with a rotten tongue’ made him feel glad he hadn’t touched food for a few hours after breakfast. Though the whole thing was written faily neatly, the last two repeated lines looked messier, as if they had been written down in a hurry, almost angrily. What was worst was that they suggested there was more, so the Time Lord almost dashed up the stairs and there, on the top step, was another abandoned piece of paper, different from the first one, but undoubtedly written by the same person. There was something different about the handwriting, it looked somewhat more hitched and irregular. The paper was stained.

 

_“Her body is cold_

_Well, it’s gonna get colder_

_My love will ignite what was left to smolder_

_I move my hips, in her I am home_

_I’ll keep on loving ‘til the marrow dries from her bones._

 

_No Death can tear us apart_

_No Death can tear us apart_

_No Death can tear us apart.”_

 

As a mental image began forming into his head, the man reading that twisted poetry had to turn around and throw up all that was left of the cereal he’d had that morning, leaving it to drip down the stone stairs until it eventually seeped into the cracks. But the Doctor wasn’t going to stand there and watch his vomit dry; he opened the door at the top of the stairs and stormed into some sort of antechamber, decorated similarly to the downstairs, the only thing different being the windows on the walls, which looked… More real. The rainstorm kept on going just outside, big drops slamming against the glass. Upon looking down at the floor, the Doctor noticed another piece of paper lying a couple of feet away from the next door. He reached for it and braced himself for another wave of retches, then began reading.

 

_“All day I stay by her side_

_But Death has a claim and a right to my bride_

_I shut the doors, pull the curtains and hide_

_I heard something moving, somewhere, outside._

 

_No Death can tear us apart_

_No Death can tear us apart_

_N o  D e a t h  c a n  t e a r  u s  a p a r t.”_

 

Luckily that last verse didn’t cause him to feel sick, but he had indeed notice something when he had stepped closer to the door. In fact, he had noticed two things: first, the music sounded nearer than ever, on the other side; second, the smell of putrid, decaying flesh had filled his nostrils, signaling the presence of what the Doctor wasn’t really expecting, in the other room. He knew the violin player had to be the Warrior, but whose corpse was lying in there? One more look at the pieces of paper and everything was clear.

Summoning all of his courage, he finally opened the door.

The music stopped right away, with the Warrior -who was standing in front of a window at the centre of the room- setting down an expensive looking, dark brown violin and bow, finally turning to face his visitor, who actually had eyes only for the naked, decomposed body of a young woman lying on the floor, her empty eyesockets staring blankly at the ceiling above her; the Doctor understood the ‘black pits’ line now. Right next to her, what the Doctor later realised to be the final piece of paper, with the last verse to the poem written on it. Once the Time Lord stepped further into the studio-like room, careful not to get too close to the corpse, the Warrior spoke, in a recitative tone.

 

“But Death comes sneaking in through the keyholes

He’s clever and he knows what’s beneath the floorboards

Death comes to feast like a greedy, hungry beast

He wants it all and here he crawls.”

 

He finished the poem himself, while the older man gave in and knelt down to grab the sheet, reading the same words War had just said. The major difference was that the handwriting was now almost unreadable, the words way too far away from each other. The last line was repeated three times, each time written worse and worse, to the point where the last letters were descending in a curved line towards the bottom right of the paper, tied together with a line of ink, as if the hand writing them hadn’t even had the strength to lift itself anymore.

The Doctor looked up at the Warrior, trying not to breathe in the smell of death. The other Time Lord didn’t even look tired from the chase. After a few instants, Doc stood back up and circled around the dead girl, getting closer to War, but not too much.

“What does this mean?” He asked, his voice cracking suddenly, startling him.

For once, the Warrior’s lips were forming an evil grin. Instead, he smirked, but somewhat compassionately. “I didn’t invent the name Malcolm Lecter.” He said. “He was the owner of this house.”

Doc scowled. “This house is your TARDIS, not a real place.”

“Partially, yes. You see, most of downstairs comes from my TARDIS, that’s true, but I kept a few rooms up here as well. This,” He explained, gesturing around himself with a hand. “Was his studio, and that…” He pointed at the girl. “Was his wife.”

“Did you kill him?”

War shook his head. “No. He was already dead when I came here. Right next to his beloved bride, with that poem in one hand and a pen in the other.”

The Doctor blinked, then looked behind himself. “Then what did you do with the body?” But seeing the other’s face he answered himself. “Dinner.”

The Warrior clapped slowly, chuckling at him. “Bravo, Doctor. I really wished you would have tasted even a bit of it, since I had it made with all my love. I guess your companions got to enjoy it before it became cold.” And to those words, the older Time Lord flinched, remembering how he’d left Jim and the others. “Oh, right!” War cackled again. “Who knows how they’re doing? I’m sure they’re having a wonderful time with the other guests!”

“They better still be alive, or I’ll--” Doc threatened, getting cut off by the other.

“You’ll what? Kill me?” War burst out laughing. “As if! And furthermore, you were the one bringing them here in the first place, it’s your own fault if they got killed!”

“That’s--” Protested the Doctor. “That’s not true, they can take care of themselves!”

“Of course they can!” By now, the Warrior had moved from his place next to the windows and had reached the desk that was standing between the Doctor and him, on top of which were all sorts of books and important looking papers, but what he got from it was a bottle of brandy, from which he poured himself a glass. Then, he continued: “You turned them into fighters.” He stated. “That Monroe, Deborah… And of course little dear Farha. It isn’t like you.”

The older man swallowed a frustrated lump at the memory of the innocent nurse.

“Yeah, I used to believe that too.”

“What happened?” There was genuine curiousity on War’s face as he sipped his drink.

“You.” The Doctor was fast. He quickly grabbed his sonic screwdriver and activated it on whatever door he could see, locking them from the distance. Now, he thought, War couldn’t run away.

Still, the younger man arched an eyebrow, finished his brandy and set the glass down. “What are you gonna do? Keep me in here until we end up like her?” Once again, he pointed at the dead woman on the floor.

“You told me this room isn’t part of your TARDIS.” Doc tightened the grip on his sonic “You’re not going anywhere.”

“Doctor!” Muffled voices from the other side of the door he’d come in called him. “It’s us! Are you in there?”

Careful not to let the Warrior out of his sight, Doc unlocked the door, letting Jim, Nora, Deborah and Monroe in. They all had blood on their clothes, in various quantities, and had their guns up, as they had done many times before.

“The cavalry has arrived.” War commented, amused.

“It’s over.” Jim replied harshly. “Come with us, now.”

But the Time Lord huffed. “But dad!” He exclaimed, then laughed again. “I wanna play with my friends! Alfred, Joan, Dean! Attack!”

From somewhere behind them, three more people entered the room; two big, burly men and a woman armed with a large bat advanced threateningly towards them.

“You will all fight!” War added. “And Doctor, you will open that door for me, please and thank you.” He then said with a grin, pointing a finger at the left door. The Doctor found himself obliging and one second later the other Time Lord was gone, running towards what looked like more stairs, heading up. “I think those lead to the roof!” Deborah exclaimed, stepping backwards to avoid getting caught by one of the two men and then proceeding to kick him in the crotch. “Is he gonna jump off?” Monroe asked, then screaming in pain when the woman’s bat hit his arm. Nora immediately jumped to the rescue, hitting her on the head with the butt of her gun and causing her to pass out. One down, two to go. Not that it took too long, since the two men were unarmed and counting on their brute strength alone, against four gun wielding people; two bullets were soon in their bodies, and they were on the ground.

“The… Bigger they are, the harder they fall?” Higgins blurted out, insecure, while holding his wounded arm. Nora couldn’t help but chuckle, as she walked up to him and checked it out. Nothing broken, but he would have had a bruise the day after. “We don’t have time for this, let’s go--” Jim had started, but the formerly passed out woman had gotten up from her lying state and was quickly charging at Nora, with a loud battle cry. With her eyes wide open in shock, the U.N.I.T. agent couldn’t do much in time, before the woman was onto her, pushing her back against the desk and over it, sending her to rumble onto the floor. The unknown woman grabbed her by her black hair and got her up, then hiding herself behind her, using her as a shield against eventual bullets.

 _“NORA!”_ Jim shouted, dashing to her. Even Monroe wasn’t fast enough for the next few seconds. No one was. With inhuman force, the woman launched herself and Nora towards the window, in a suicide attempt. The glass shattered under their weight and let them plummet down the whole building.

Everything stopped. Jim could feel his heartbeat in his ears, slowed down. He suddenly didn’t feel like breathing at all anymore, as if his only reason to had just been thrown out of a window. Literally. In an utterly blank state of mind, the man stormed to the broken window, looked down and…

Both the woman he loved and the woman who had attacked her were holding on with the sheer strength of their hands to the ournament right below the window, staring up at him with terrified expressions as they struggled to grip the wet stone. “Jim!” Nora called, as more thunder cracked the sky. “Help me!”

“Hold on!” He yelled back. “Monroe, come here!” The detective obeyed, not even caring if his arm hurt as if it’d been broken even though it hadn’t. He joined Jim at the window and leaned over the edge to extend his hands to Nora, just like the other man had done. “Jim!” Deborah yelled, but he wasn’t listening. All he cared about was saving his partner, his beloved, his--

“Go!” Monroe shouted at the Doctor. “Go get him! We’ll take care of this!”

So the Time Lord and the girl hurried to the door and up the stairs.

“Nora, take my hand!” The U.N.I.T. agent cried out, right in the moment when the other woman’s fingers slipped and she plummeted down to her death, her skull cracking onto the concrete, blood flowing out and surrounding her like a twisted version of a halo. Jim was more scared than ever. “Please!” Nora whimpered, tears streaming down her cheeks, though invisible in the rain. “Please, help me!”

 

The Doctor was the first one to reach the roof, where the rain fell as hard as ever. He could see the Warrior standing a few feet from him in the dark, staring at him with his usual, unbearable grin. Why was he grinning, if he had nowhere to go?!

“Stop right there, Deborah!” He exclaimed, and the girl just behind the older man froze on her spot. “Doc, lock the door.” As the Doctor turned around, screwdriver in hand, the Warrior’s sister stared at him in terror. “No, no, no!” She yelled, but War shut her up. “Since you can still hear me, sis…” The Doctor had one hand on the door and was about to close it. “Go downstairs and take care of the others, will ya?”

Deborah could say nothing more when the door slammed in her face.

Though a part of her didn’t want to, she turned around. She walked down the stairs. She got back into the studio, unnoticed. She leaned down and grabbed the large cricket bat. All Monroe could ask was: “What--” Before he dropped on the floor, unconscious. “Deborah?!” Jim shouted, to be heard above the storm.

The raven haired girl could only mumble a few words.

_“I’m sorry.”_

And then she pushed the man with all her strength, causing him to lose his balance and twirl forward, his large frame inexorably taking Nora down with him. The two fell down the five storeys of the mansion. It lasted fairly less than Jim had hoped for, but before his head hit the stone of the steps that led to the front door, he somehow managed to reach out and take the woman he loved into his arms, desperately trying to protect her. Desperately trying to show her how much he loved her, in his last moments. Then, it was only darkness.

 

Once the Doctor had completed his task, he was free of thinking again, and he faced the Warrior again. “Why?!” He yelled, stepping forward despite everything.

“She was armed. I wouldn’t have lasted long with her around.” War was far too calm for the situation, and stood dangerously close to the edge of the roof. As the Doctor noticed that, he grew afraid of getting closer. “War, you don’t have to do this, you didn’t have to do any of this!”

But the other man just smirked. “I did. It’s in my nature, Doctor.”

“That’s not _true!_ You’re not like this! And I don’t care what you say, you have never been like this! Whatever the Warlord put inside of your brain isn’t true, listen to me, please! You’ve never been like this, you’ve never fought to defend yourself and get revenge like some sick animal; you fight to protect others and _that’s_ who you are!” The younger man was in his reach and, for the first time in a while, he looked _unsettled._

“You-” One more step. “Are-” Doc extended one hand. “The Warrior!” Finally, with one last dash, he wrapped his arms around the other, burying his face into the groove of his neck. Now, he didn’t have to yell anymore.

“Please, War. Listen to me.”

He noticed something. Little hiccups from the Warrior’s body. And he knew it was over. It had happened before: he had gotten too close, War had pretended to listen to him, and then he’d started laughing and had shot him. This time was no different.

And yet, he was wrong. The Warrior wasn’t laughing. He was… Sobbing quietly.

“I am.” He said. “I am listening to you. And…” His breath hitched. “And you’re right. I’m… Sorry, I…” The Doctor had his senses at full performance, trying to find a mistake in that whole charade, before War tried to kill him again.

But nothing happened.

“My nature is wrong, Doctor, that wasn’t a lie.” War continued, slightly pulling away from the hug and causing the other man to have a mini heart attack as he thought:

_This is it, he’s going to kill me now._

Again, nothing. Instead, the Warrior just smiled at him, gently, yet half-heartedly. “I did horrible things, I deserve whatever fate U.N.I.T. had in store for me.”

“Screw U.N.I.T.!” Doc said. “I forgive you.”

To those words, something inside the Warrior seemed to break. Maybe it was something metaphorical, maybe it was something literal, but he just didn’t look the same he had until then. Perhaps that was all he needed, to be forgiven by the Doctor, to be healed from whatever afflicted him. It was a dumb idea, but the older man didn’t feel like thinking too much to get to a smarter one. He just needed to know if the Warrior was okay now.

But he shook his head slowly. “You can’t. And you haven’t forgiven me. Not yet anyways. Your rule number one is…” He paused to inhale sharply. “The Doctor lies, but you can’t lie to me. You never could.” He lightly cackled at the memories.

“You have to do something for me, Doc.” He added.

“Anything.”

War smiled. Without ordering him to, without forcing him to, he kissed the man. And he felt him reciprocate, a good sign nonetheless.

“Was it this?” The Doctor asked once they had separated.

“No.” War’s smile had faded. Along with most of the powers he had absorbed from his uncle’s clone. He just knew it, they wouldn’t have lasted forever. And if they had been used to hurt up until now, his last order was going to be something to protect the others, like his pledge said.

To protect the others from ever seeing him again.

“Push me.”

The Doctor didn’t argue. He couldn’t. It didn’t take much strength, but soon the Warrior’s body was flying off the edge, dropping from fifty feet of height and landing flat on the hard ground of the backyard, on the opposite side of where three other people had fallen. It only took a couple of seconds. He felt every bone in his body shatter upon touching the ground, the pain was unbearable, but he still smiled at the rain falling onto his face and at the top of the mansion where he couldn’t see the Doctor anymore, as he knew what was coming next. His hearts stopped with the shock; a sweet release he had postponed way too long--

Unexpected, the golden mist he knew far too well began floating around his body.

A Time Lord can decide not to regenerate after a fatal wound or sickness, which leads to permanent death, of course. And yet, something in War’s brain must have clicked, answering ‘Yes’ before he could even protest against himself.

Then, the energy exploded in the dark, in the form of a bright, golden light.

 

The Doctor immediately realised what he had done, and he knew what he had to do next. He rushed to the door, momentarily forgot it was locked and slammed into it, unlocked it with his sonic, and finally stormed down the stairs, not seeing the regeneration process actually happening. He was rather surprised when he found none of his companions waiting for him there, but then he remembered what War’s order to Deborah had been and his hearts sank. He had to hurry.

Not actually knowing of a way to get to the backyard, he ran all the way back to the dining room, caring little about the dead bodies of the guests on the marble floor, and finally in the hallway and out of the main door.

There, he found a worried-out-of-her-mind Deborah and a confused Monroe, who was holding his head, knelt next to a mass of dark clothes the Doctor only then realised being Jim. He also saw what he had died protecting: Nora, who laid, seemingly unconscious, in his arms. Deborah had two fingers pressed to her throat and tears in her eyes. “She’s still alive…” She said in a whisper, to Monroe. “God, I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry….” She then directed those words to Jim, while Higgins didn’t look very alert, as he was profusely losing blood from a wound on his head. The Doctor approached them and Deborah explained through the tears, then the Time Lord urged her to calm down, telling her what had happened on the roof.

“Get them to the TARDIS, I’ll get the Warrior.”

So Monroe and Deborah carefully lifted Nora up and brought her back to the blue box, disappearing inside of it. The Doctor immediately turned around to get to the backyard, but-- The sound of another TARDIS engine starting and, soon after, the very walls of the mansion changing from white to dark grey offered a clear explanation: War had survived, but was gone again.

The older man stood there, staring at the front door in silence, when Deborah approached him again. “Help me out.” She mumbled, still crying from before.

And the Doctor did.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**_Epilogue_ **

 

**_\-------2018, two years later-------_ **

 

The sound of a bird chirping would have normally signified a tree with a nest was nearby, but in this case, it was a phone ringing to signal the arrival of a text message.

The _toc-toc-toc_ of the cane hitting the pavement with every step would have normally meant an elderly person was slowly making their way down to the market or back to their home, but in this particular case, the cane belonged to an almost 30 years old woman, who looked everything but elderly, in her suit pants and jacket, worn above a simple white blouse. Her wavy dark hair held in a bun on the back of her head, she looked more like an indipendent businesswoman, going on a stroll in the park.

Part of it was true. Nora, who had changed her last name after getting married, was going back home to his husband and newborn daughter, who she had trusted upon him as she had gone out to walk her daily mile or so. A nice apartment in London, nothing too big nor too small, and luckily the building had an elevator, so she didn’t have to do much but press a button when she got in. Their apartment was on the fourth floor and walking up the stairs in her condition would have forced her to stay in bed for the next two weeks, so she didn’t mind using the lift at all. Once she got to the door with the number 305 on it, she grabbed her keys and slid them into the keyhole, and the door opened soon after.

“Honey, I’m home!” She hollered jokingly, with a laugh. “We’re over here!” A man’s voice replied from another room; Nora followed the delightul giggles of little Natalie all the way down the hallway and to the bedroom, the _toc-toc-toc_ of the cane accompanying her until she poked her head into the doorway, seeing the man she’d married sitting on the bed with her back to her and the baby in his lap. He was wearing a simple white t-shirt and sweatpants, more precisely the pair Nora had given him as a present a bit earlier that week, as a birthday present.

“Hello!” She hooted in the voice her daughter loved so much, causing her husband to turn around and the baby to squeal in delight.

“How was the walk?” Asked Monroe, smiling at his wife as she went to sit next to him and poked the child’s little hand with a finger.

“The usual. It’s a wonderful day outside.” Nora replied, her smile not leaving her face.

Monroe took the time to gaze at her as if it’d been the first time. He still remembered the nights he’d spent at her side as she recovered from the fall, even not going to Jim’s funeral because of it. Not that she could’ve gone anyways, but it had still made them feel bad. Even now, when Nora went on her daily walks, she would sometimes pass by the graveyard, sit on a bench near her former colleague’s tombstone and talk to him. She’d talk to him about her life, how she had finally been promoted as liutenant at U.N.I.T., she had even told him about Monroe, the wedding, the baby, and how she had almost convinced him to find a job at Scotland Yard, until he had changed her mind and had gotten hired by U.N.I.T. thanks to her. She’d tell him about anything, really. She wouldn’t really say everything when she came home, but he just knew.

“I love Sundays.” Nora added after a few seconds. “I get to stay with you both a little more.” Monroe smiled. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

 

**_\------- The Doctor’s TARDIS -------_ **

 

“Are you ready?” The Doctor hollered, his hands already on the console, ready to start the engine and leave their current floating-in-space location.

“Yep!” A girl’s voice replied, and soon afterwards a head covered in raven black hair popped up from the stairs. “So where’s the next possible place?” Deborah asked, fixing her jacket and leaning against the circular platform in the middle of the room.

“Don’t do that.” Doc stated, staring down at her elbow, which was dangerously close to a switch they really didn’t want to flick right now.

“Oops, sorry.” She immediately straightened herself up. “So?”

“There’s a base of miners on Pluto, I found some weird signal coming from there, wanna go check it out?” The man then said, a half smile on his face.

Deborah nodded, folding her arms on her chest. “You think he might be there?”

“We might as well try.”

The girl smiled as well. “Let’s try, then.”

Before starting the engine, the Doctor ran a hand in his gel-spiked up hair, as he had started styling his hair a few weeks after he and Deborah had left Monroe and Nora at the U.N.I.T. base once more. He had grown to like it again, and he thought it made him younger. The Time Lord finally pulled the first lever.

“Allons-y.”

 

**_\------- The Warrior’s TARDIS -------_ **

 

Everything was a mess. When the newly regenerated Warrior had activated his TARDIS, something had gone off the hooks, causing it to shake more than usual and, upon further investigation, to twist and turn its way through time and space. Something had gone wrong with the artificial gravity as well, as War was now slamming from one side of the console room to the other, trying to grip onto whatever he could find. Railings, chairs, the glass column, nothing was too safe.

As the floor stabilized for a bit, the Time Lord ran a hand in his black hair, messing it up even more, as his blue eyes fixated onto the screen. The coordinates on it where all wrong, according to his knowledge of the universe, he was… Nowhere. His location just didn’t make sense and--

The loud noise of a crash, along with the impact, sent the poor Time Lord flying through the room once again, throwing him against the edge of the opened door and causing him to hit his head pretty hard. As his mind went pitch black, the last thing he felt was the cold, white snow against his face.

  
  


**_((To be continued. In season 8.))_ **

  


**_((I do not own the song I quoted, which is “No Death” by Mirel Wagner.))_ **

  
  
  



End file.
